


A festival of traitors

by Irisen



Series: Unspeakable Truths [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood Magic, Dark, Family, Family Feels, Gen, Hogwarts Era, Percy Weasley-centric, Politics, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Serious Injuries, Time Travel, Unreliable Narrator, animal experimentation, rating for how fucked up it is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2019-08-01 16:46:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 36,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16288199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irisen/pseuds/Irisen
Summary: In his first life, Percy did not have many friends, especially not after the beginning of the war as-quite unfortunately- most wizards tended to die rather quickly, which did not make it very easy to bond with them. However, there was no need to be his friend to know one essential thing about him.Percy Weasley was efficient. Still is.To everyone else, he's only an eleven year old, a child, eager to start learning about magic and making friends. To himself, he's a man on a mission.Protect his family.Whatever the cost, he will do it.





	1. Honour and Purity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can read this as a standalone. The OS that comes before this sheds light on Percy's backstory and his first steps after waking up in this timeline. Not reading it will make it a bit more mysterious, maybe. Idk.  
> Do what you want.

Being back in Hogwarts feels good.

Being back in Hogwarts feels wrong.

The castle's walls are as strong as they ever were, standing tall and proud, stone and magic coming together to create one of the strongest fortresses to ever exist in the world. Its wards speak of history and power, of legendary figures, kings and heroes resting under its roof. The air around it is electric, full of pure, wild magic, brought here by centuries upon centuries of spell being cast there. It feels familiar, it feels like home.

But there, in the main Hall, also laid hundreds of bodies, children and adults, disfigured, destroyed. There, in the lake, used to float the remains of those unfortunate enough to fall to their death during the aerial battle. There, at the edge of the Forbidden Forrest, piles of corpses, half-eaten by werewolves and hell hounds, rotted under the sun. Nobody had been brave enough to pick them up and they had stayed there until they were nothing but bones, licked clean by the wild creatures roaming between the trees.

Hogwarts is a safe haven but Hogwarts is where the greatest and most terrible battle of the war happened. Hogwarts brings back memories of laughter, Christmas under the snow and grandiose feasts just as it evokes the sight of Fred's body, lying motionless on the floor, neck twisted and limbs covered in bruises. Hogwarts is heaven, Hogwarts is hell.

And Percy feels like he can't breathe.

There are children all around him, screaming, laughing, whispering. Some of them, he remembers the name of, some of them he remembers the eyes of. A few of them, he distincly can picture dying, kneeling in the snow, in the dirt, on cold stone. Executed, gutted, assassinated.

 

He is not ready for this.

 

He knows it now, knows that he will not be able to act like he wants to, not in this place, not with these people. Everything about the school makes him want to draw out his wand and place a hundred wards around himself. Everything about the children around him makes him want to turn against them and gut them all before they can touch him, before they can say another word. The sound of their voices coils in his ears, making his blood boil and heart race. He feels like a wild, dangerous creature let free in the midst of a crowd of poor innocent rabbits.

He doesn't kill anyone, though. Doesn't scream, doesn't run. Instead, he turns his eyes to the black water under the small boat he has been told to sat in and he remembers what it felt like to see the bloated remains of the bodies that spent a day and night floating in it. At some point, he answers a question, tells his name to a small black-haired girl. She's Muggleborn, by the way she looks at everything with a sense of awe, and this alone would have spelt her death no less than two years ago, in Percy's time, of course.

 

He steps out of the boat with little trepidation, the excitation of the children around him making his skin crawl with unease. When Minerva McGonagall greets them in the Entrance Hall, he doesn't listen to a word she says, trying his best not to remember her as she had been in the last days of the war, bedridden and weak, her legs crushed beyond repair. Next to him, a boy breaks into stressed tears, quickly reconforted by another child who looks just like him.

Twins.

He swallows back a wave of nausea, forcing himself to stay upright, to stop his hands from trembling and his knees from weakening. He's here now, he can't go back, at least not without a lot more Time Turners than what he has currently on hand. He opened the rift for this, for this second chance, he can't turn his back now.

 

They step inside the Great Hall.

 

As they always are in the beginning of the year, the four House tables are full of students craning their necks to see the faces of the new batch of first years coming through the doors. In the red and gold side of the room, Percy can see his two older brothers, Bill and Charlie, looking intently at him, a serious expression on their face. They are worried, of course they are. Ever since he came back to this time, to this body, his family has been able to feel that something is wrong with him.

This evening will probably not reassure them. At all.

 

Minerva steps in front of their group, joining the professors' table, in front of which the Sorting Hat has been placed. Patiently, she crosses her arms in front of her and waits as the being's mouth opens slightly and it starts to sing its usual refrain.

Not bothering with listening to a song that he already know full well, Percy lets his gaze wander around the room instead, recognising faces everywhere his eyes land. Here, a former Death Eater he murdered in cold blood, here an unfortunate victim of a stray Avada, still alive now, but for how long? Tired of seeing reminders of the war every two faces he looks at, he turns his eyes to the fake sky of the Great Hall. Tonight, it's clear, showing a galaxy of stars and possibilities.

"Clearwater Penelope."

The familiar name breaks Percy out of his trance and he watches as a tiny blonde girl breaks out of the group of the first years and walks to the Sorting Hat. It only takes a minute for her to be Sorted into her old House and, soon, she is sitting with all the other ravenclaws, whispering introductions and smiling at them.

Slowly, he lowers his hands into his robes' pockets, clenching them into fists as soon as they are out of view. His history with his fellow students is going to be difficult to deal with, just like everything else in the school. Standing there is like standing in the middle of one of his nightmares, the second before everything goes to hell and everyone dies.

 

By the time his name is called, everyone else has been Sorted and he is the last standing. The other students' attention has all but waned by now, they are all hungry and desperate to start the Feast. In fact, his brothers must be the only ones even remotely invested in his Sorting, as even the teachers are starting to look away, already expecting him to be sent to Gryffindor, like every member of his family so far, and for generations.

He feels a bit like laughing at it, at them, but he reigns it in. Instead, he steps forward, hands still in his pockets, fists still clenched. His wand burns against his thigh and a hundred destructive spells war in his mind. He thinks them all as he sits on the stool next to Minerva, as his vision is obscured by the rim of the Hat and as the background noise of the Great Hall fades into nothing.

" _Oh my"_

In his head, the Hat sounds a bit astonished, a bit horrified and, as Percy feels him sort through his memories, glancing at most of them, not daring to stop and probe one more than necessary, he feels it quiver, as if it was alive and not just a piece of fabric.

_"Oh dear. My poor boy."_

"You know what I want." Percy says flatly.

And the Hat does.

When it screams out "Slytherin!", silence falls over the Great Hall, quickly broken by whispers, growing stronger and stronger as some polite snakes applaud him. At the Gryffindor table, Charlie and Bill look horrified.

He joins his new House, sits with the other first years and introduces himself. The half-bloods and muggleborns smile politely at him and the purebloods sneer, already despising him despite them having never met before. They are only children, though, so he can't fault them for that. At this age, kids mostly mirror their parents' own behaviour and beliefs.

Of course he knows that most of them will, in the near future, join the Dark Lord's ever growing army and eventually die clad in black and red, a skull branded on their forearm, but they are not these wizards yet and Flint, when he glares at him, looks more like a disgruntled child than a vicious killer. That's what they are in the end, children.

 

Bored out of his mind by the meaningless discussions the boys and girls around him are having, Percy ends up looking at the teachers' table instead of listening to them. Snape is there, young and alive, his face free of any scars and his right eye still working properly. Next to him, Minerva has taken a seat, her expression closed, worried. She raises her gaze and, for an instant, they are looking directly at each other, eyes to eyes.

 

"Hey Percy," Thomas, one of the muggleborn children, asks. "You want some mashed potatoes?"

Percy looks at him, at his flushed cheeks and crooked teeth, at his dirty blond hair and green eyes. His tie is wrinkly, the knot too loose for it to last for the entirety of the night. He's a little boy, barely past ten and already propulsed in a world of intrigue and prejudice. This year will not be easy for him, as a muggleborn. 

"Yes, thank you." He says, accepting the plate the kid is handing him. 

He serves himself a spoonful, not intending to eat any of it, his nausea too strong by this point for him to ingest anything other than water. Once he is done with it, he places it back on the wooden table and goes back to staring at his teachers.

He should probably be trying to become friend with the other boys and girls but even slightly looking at them makes his hands shake and his breath itch so he decides to leave it for another day, when he's feeling less on edge. After his quick dismissal of the blond kid, the other firsties get the message and no one tries to talk to him again, leaving him plenty of time to calm himself. Not that he does. By the end of the Feast, his vision is so blurry that starts to wonder if someone has cursed him without his knowledge.

 

One of their Prefect, a sixth year boy with a dark complexion and surprisingly clear blue eyes, guides them to the Slytherin Common Room. The password, when it is uttered, makes Percy's skin crawl. 

"Honour and Purity," the Prefect tells a blank wall, causing it to shimmer out of existence. That the snakes' password has anything to do with honour is a bit ironic. During the war, the former slytherins always were the msot dangerous fighters, mostly because they didn't care about honour or what was proper. They used any tricks they could to think of to kill their opponents, and it worked.

Towards the end, Percy did that too. Everyone did.

 

The rest of the evening is a blur of motion and voices and, by the end of it, he's left sitting on a large bed, curtains drawn around him and wounds that he thought long gone reopened in his mind. It takes him a good half-hour to gather himself enough to be able to grip his wand without shaking and another half-hour to think properly about what he's going to do now that he is,  _finally_ , at Hogwarts.

Years of looking behind his shoulder everywhere he went have not left him well prepared to share his room with four strangers for an entire year and it's not long before he's thinking about the wards he'll have to put around his bed and dresser in order to feel safe enough to sleep. His first instinct, of course, is to put in a curse that will crush the ribcage of any intruder but, considering that he's a first year Hogwarts student sleeping in the same room as four literal children, he takes it down a notch, turning to protective Runes instead.

He engraves a few of them on the wood above his pillows, using his wand to carve the signs easily. They will only serve to wake him up whenever someone touches his curtains and, in case of an aggression, they will stun the attacker for a few seconds, long enough for him to react. He then puts a permanent Silencio spell around his bed, to drown out any sound that he might make during the night, and transfigures the curtains until they are heavy enough not to let any light slip through. He expects to be doing a lot of extra-curricular reading and experiments at night, now that he no longer has to conform to his parents' planned sleep schedule, and he doesn't want to bother his roommates with it. They are only children, after all. They need their sleep.

 

Once he's done, he lays back down on the mattress, enjoying the feeling of having his wand and being able to use magic whenever he wants to. He missed this, missed the power that comes with knowing a spell, missed the safety he felt whenever he brushed the wood of his weapon. Getting it back from Ollivander's was one of the best moments of his new life, even if his tears did worry his parents a little.

Eyes half-closed, he thinks about all he will have to do in the next year. Now that he has access to a proper library, he'll have to find everything he can get his hands on on the subject of rituals and dark magic in the Reserve. He knows some of the school books from the old curriculum, back when using rituals was still legal, are kept there, along with a few purely theorical books that don't bother with the distinction between light and dark magic. With a bit of chance, one of them will contain the answers he needs and, if none of them do, he'll have to fall back on his Plan B and try to find a list of former students of the school, hoping the Dark Lord is among them. He knows their records are kept somewhere but has never seen them in the Reserve, despite his many years patrolling the library as a Prefect.

Exhausted, he rolls on his side, trying his best to ignore the sound of muffled breathing that comes from behind the other boys' curtains. He has half a mind to cast Silencio on their own beds but his tiredness stops him from it. His body is not used to using any magic and, whenever he casts something, exhaustion is quick to catch up to him. An eleven years old's magical core is weak, untrained, which is why the school only teaches them the weakest kind of spells, ones that will not strain their magical potential. Warding is exhausting and Silencio is an higher level spell. Percy has never been a particularly strong wizard, unlike Ginny, so it's not surprising that he feels like collapsing, now that he has used both of these forms of magic.

He closes his eyes.

Despite the ever-present anxiety in his mind, sleep is surprisingly easy to come.


	2. Starting Over (is difficult)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not even his first day and Percy is already in trouble.
> 
> Warnings for : Injuries, death.

_**Why?** _

 

_"Protect the children!" Someone screamed, their voice too far away to be recognisable. Still, despite no one knowing who the order was from, every wizard in the vicinity closed rank around the remaining boys and girls of the castle. Most of them were kids that did not have the time to evacuate but some of them volontarily snuck out to fight with the adults.They were regretting it, now, tears rolling down their faces and hands trembling, unable to even grasp their wands properly._

_They were so young, so stupid._

_Aurors and Order of the Phoenix members stood around the children, wands drawn, hurling curses after curses at the Death Eaters that were trying to break their ranks. There were so many more of them than what they first thought. Hundreds of wizards had joined the ranks of the Dark Lord's army, some of them under the Imperio but a large part voluntarily, pushed by ambition and political convictions, ready to die for their Lord._

_Percy, unused to fighting anyone, was struggling, a small group of schoolchildren huddled behind him, sobbing helplessly. He did his best to protect them, still, casting Protego after Protego and sometimes breaking his rythm to send a few Bombardas and Depulsos at a nearby dark wizard._

_Light, screams and dust, everywhere._

_Beams of colours, sometimes red but mostly green whirled past his head and, as he struggled, more and more bodies fell to the ground, on both side. One of his Bombardas caught a Death Eater's leg, making it explode grotesquely, sending bits of flesh and bones everywhere. At the same time, a Bone-breaker curse hit his left-arm, thankfully not his dominant one, twisting it with a sinister snap._

_He screamed._

_But then, everyone was screaming so it was hard to tell what was his voice and what was not. There was so much noise that everything was drowning out into a big mess of explosions, thuds and yelling. At some point, one of the stone walls around them exploded, sending everyone to the ground._

_The pain was so intense that, for a second, everything turned black._

_When he came to, he was laying on his side, left arm still broken and bleeding in multiple places, his entire body bruised and battered. In front of him, eyes open, wide and empty, was the corpse of one of the children he was trying to protect. A small Hufflepuff girl with dark blond hair and freckles. She looked a bit like Ginny._

_The blood seeping from the girl's head slowly coloured her hair darker and darker until they were completely red, just like the floor around her, just like the world and just like the spells still flying above them. And then, then the blood reached her Hufflepuff robes, turning the yellow red and, suddenly, she was Ginny._

_She was Ginny, laying on the side of a street, guts spilling from her ripped skin, blood everywhere on her face, on her fingers and eyes empty, unable to see her husband, crying next to her, calling her, begging her to come back..._

_And her blood..._

_Her blood was on Percy's hands too._

 

_**I don't understand.** _

 

**oOo**

 

He opens his eyes and, for a second, he believes that he's still twenty-one and in the middle of a battlefield. He reaches for his wand with his unbroken arm, points it in front of him and pronounces the incantation for one of the most violent curses he knows.

His magic, however, is exhausted and, when the words leave his mouth, the only effect they have is making the tip of his wand heat up and a small beam of light singe one of the bedposts. He stays motionless for a couple of minutes, breathless and covered in cold sweat. His left arm hurts badly, as if it had just been broken, as if he did not suffer through a dream but through an actual battle.

 

He breathes in and out deeply, thanking Merlin for having had the foresight of Silencio-ing his bed. With the ruckus he just made, he'd be sure to have woken every single one of the boys currently sleeping in the room.

As he comes back to himself, the pain in his left arm becomes more acute and he can't help but cry out again when, carelessly, he tries to move it and only succeeds in making it much, much worse. With a dawning horror, he realises that his arm _really_ is broken, that, somehow, he has replicated the effect of the Bone-breaker curse on _himself_.

This has never happened before.

Never.

His breath hitches and, suddenly, he has to fight to keep breathing correctly, head spinning and throat tightening. He broke his own arm in his sleep. _He broke his own arm in his sleep_. This is so ridiculous that he might have been laughing were he not so utterly horrified.

What is happening?

How is that possible?

Bile rising in his throat, he one-handedly opens the curtains around the bed, groaning at how heavy he made them, and stumbles out of it, the stone floor blessedly cold under his feet. He's not concerned about not waking up his roommates anymore but, somehow, he manages to make it to the door without one of them stirring. Proped up against the wall, he managed to push the handle and slid in the corridor.

Being in the dungeons allow for the Slytherin quarters to be much larger in size than the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw ones but it also stops them from having access to any form of natural light so he has no way of telling what the time is. Considering the lack of any students in the hallways, it must still be the middle of the night, not the best time to be caught outside of his dormitory.

 

He slowly and painfully makes his way out of the Common Room and up the stairs leading to the rest of the castle, having to stop every few steps to catch his breath. His arm is aching ruthlessly and it takes all of his willpower not to crumble under the pain. This body is most definitely unused to any kind of abuse and he feels it dearly. He can't imagine what a Cruciatus curse would to do him in this state.

The Infirmary, when he opens its doors, is dark and empty. It's only the first night, after all, and no one really gets hurt during this time. No one excepts him, apparently.

Too tired to go any further and knowing full well that Mrs Pomfrey has wards waking her up whenever a student enters the room, he sits down against the closest wall, laying his legs out in front of him and focusing on his breathing to ignore the terrible pain he's in. If this is what his school years are going to be made of, he'd rather go back to the Burrow and try to get rid of the Dark Lord from there. His parents would probably be happy about it, too.

 

The sound of someone running towards him makes him raise his head just in time to see the school nurse, a Lumos at the tip of her wand, approaching. The darkness makes her face impossible to see but her voice is nervous enough for him to understand how she feel about the current situation.

"Oh dear, oh dear. What happened to you, honey?"

"It's broken." He answers a bit dumbly, gesturing at his left arm.

"I can see that... Here, let's get you into a bed. Can you stand up?"

 

With her help, he walks to the nearest infirmary bed and sits on its edge, watching confusedly as she uses magic to light up the entire room. A stern look on her face, Mrs Pomfrey waves her wand over his arm.

"Broken in several places," she tells him. "Wait a moment, darling."

She smiles at him softly and walks away from the bed to call a House elf. The little creature disappear soon after that and, once it does, she comes back to his bedside, putting the tip of her wand on his wrist.

"Brackium Emendo," she casts after a few seconds. The charm, one of the most difficult in the realm of healing spells, one Percy's mum, who used to be a nurse at St Mungo's before she had them, sometimes has trouble using, is used perfectly, slowly mending his broken bones and setting them back into place. It's painful, of course, but not as painful as it would have been, healing on its own.

When it dissipates, the charm leaves behind it a slight tingling sensation and, despite his arm being sore, it doesn't feel broken, or even sprained, anymore. In fact, when he tries to move it, it responds perfectly fine. If he had any doubt before, he now knows for sure that Mrs Pomfrey is one of the most talented Healers there is. Dumbledore must have fought hard to keep her away from St Mungo's, she could have easily become Head Healer there.

Now that he's not injured anymore, the nurse's tone goes back to the one she usually uses around students, firm and stern. After a last diagnosis spell to check if every bone is truly healed, she tells him : "Now, you stay here young man." And goes to open the front door of the Infirmary. Utterly confused, Percy watches as Severus Snape steps inside the room and walks up to him, wondering what in Merlin's name he is doing here. It takes him an embarassingly long time to remember that he _is_ a slytherin now and that, from now on, the teacher in charge of him will be Snape, and no longer Minerva.

"Weasley." Snape grumbles. "I knew you being in my House would bring nothing but trouble."

Before Percy can defend himself, the older man turns to Mrs Pomfrey, inquiring :

"What's wrong with him?"

The nurse, after sending him a thoroughly disapproving glare, answers, in a tone much calmer than the one she had when Percy first entered the Infirmary :

"His left-arm was broken in several places--"

"Was?" Snape sneers, looking annoyed at having been woken up in the middle of the night for this. Now that he's thinking about it, Percy can see that his hair, while still greasy, is a bit less ordered than it usually is and that, under his robes, he is wearing pajamas. It's such a weird detail that he prefers to ignore it, just like he ignores the fact that the man in front of him is a _Death Eater_ , and one he has seen several time on the other side of the battlefield.

"I healed it," Mrs Pomfrey explains. "But this is not why I called you here."

The Potions master waves his hand in the air, as if telling her to keep talking, which she does gladly.

"Mr Weasley here had all the symptom of a victim of a Bone-breaker curse."

Snape takes in a deep breath.

"Are you sure?" He wonders. "A Bone-breaker?"

"Yes. I've seen plenty of those during the last war to be able to recognise them everywhere." While talking, she grabs Percy's arm and starts pointing at several parts of it, including his wrist and slightly above his elbow. "There, at these four points. It's always the same with these curses, that's why they are easy to detect."

His Head of House closes his eyes, looking exhausted for a second, sighs deeply, hand raising to massage the bridge of his nose, before he opens them again, focused solely on Percy, who barely stops himself from flinching.

"What do you have to say for yourself, Weasley?" He asks, not as agressively as he could have.

"What Professor Snape means," Mrs Pomfrey glares, "is : can you tell us what you remember?"

He frowns, not sure of what to tell them. He remembers having a nightmare about the war, then waking up in terrible pain and realising that his arm had been broken during his sleep. The rest of the night is blurry, flashes of him walking through the corridors and almost falling down the stairs, his arms hanging limply at his side and his legs barely carrying him.

"I-- I had a dream," he begins, "well-- a nightmare really. And when I woke up my arm was broken. So I came here."

His lackluster explanation makes Snape sigh again and, this time, he looks about ready to whack him on the head for disturbing his sleep schedule. Mrs Pomfrey, her, looks a bit disappointed.

"You had a nightmare," the potions teacher repeats, "and when you woke up your arm was broken."

Percy slowly nods, not really knowing what else to say. For a moment, all three of them stay silent before the Head of slytherin tells him, his voice flat :

"I don't believe you."

The man then turns to the side and snaps his fingers. As soon as he does so, a House elf materialises next to him, bowing down.

"Get me that boy's wand." He orders.

He then looks back at Percy, who still has not much idea of what is happening around him, and warns him :

"If you were involved in any kind of fighting, boy, I swear you'll--"

"Severus!"

Not letting him finish his sentence, Mrs Pomfrey grabs the man's arm and drags him forcefully away from the bed, whispering furiously. Percy watches them go, feeling strangely detached. It's been so long since he has seen either of them that meeting them again in this specific situation is a bit ridiculous. He feels like laughing.

Soon enough, the elf his back and, in its hands, is his wand. Seeing it being handled by someone other than him makes the darker part of his mind rebel and he has to grip the covers of the bed tightly to stop himself from running to the creature and getting it back. Instead, he watches as Snape carefully picks it up and draws his own wand from his robes, incanting :

"Prior Incantatio."

"Severus!" Mrs Pomfrey protests, even as he's casting the spell, sounding exasperated.

She's too late in stopping him, however, as Percy's wand lights up and, in a flash of light, reveals the last spell he has used, one he does not even remember casting.

Cofringo.

Confusion is evident on everyone's face as they watch the curse disappear into nothingness. Both adults turn to stare at him, obviously noticing his own surprised expression and turn back to his wand. Disbelieving, Professor Snape casts the reverse spell again, watching as a ghostly Cofringo appears once again in the air.

"This is not possible." The man says. "You can't know this spell."

"Obviously something happened to him, Severus." Mrs Pomfrey hisses, elbowing him.

Percy, who never had easy access to his wand before he came to Hogwarts, his parents preferring to keep them away from him, in case he accidentally hurt himself, has no trouble believing that he might have used the blasting curse, one that has the potential to kill dozens of people at a time, upon waking up from a nightmare. This, added to the fact that he apparently broke his own arm, is extremely worrying, both for his health and for the one of the boys in his dormitory.

What if, next time, he actually has enough magical strength to cast the curse efficiently? What if he accidentally hurts or kills someone?

The thought of it is enough to make a chill run down his spine.

 

The adults must have noticed his horrified expression as they start talking to him again, in a softer tone this time.

"Don't worry, dear," Mrs Pomfrey tries to reassure him, "you aren't in trouble."

After whispering with her colleague a bit more, she informs him that he'll have to spend the rest of the night in the Infirmary and that, if he 'ever remembers anything', he's free to come to her whenever he wants to. Both her and Snape obviously believe that he's been attacked or bullied in some way and he's too tired and too disheartened to correct their assumptions. Once he left alone, he lays back down on the Infirmary bed and stares at the ceiling, wishing being in the school didn't bring back so many bad memories. He had underestimated how much coming there would disturb him, had thought that the Battle and everything that came after were long forgotten by now.

He was wrong and here he was, paying for his mistakes.

Needless to say that this is a less than ideal beginning to his first year.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the support guys, here's chapter two. It's still a bit short but hey, chapter 3 will be a bit longer.


	3. Weasleys and Firecrabs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I lied, it's actually a short chapter. Sorry guys.

There's someone talking next to him and, in his half-asleep state, it's enough to alarm him. In a snap, he's awake and his wand is in his hand, ready to be used at the first sign of trouble. He hasn't yet opened his eyes when he suddenly remembers where he is, and why. Slowly, he lowers himself back onto the bed, dropping his wand on the mattress, lest he be tempted to use it in yet another way he's not supposed to know of. With a heart beating too fast for him to be feeling anywhere at ease, he pretends to sleep, hoping that his earlier agitation wasn't too noticeable.

"Calm down, Mr Weasley" Mrs Pomfrey says, a few meters away from him, "your brother is perfectly fine."

"What is he doing at the Infirmary, then, if he's perfectly fine?"

Charlie. So the nurse has seen fit to call his siblings. This is not really surprising, he remembers distinctly having to send letters and notices to the family of children who ended up in the Infirmary, even if the injury that put them here was nothing more than a light sprain. The fact that he has two older brothers, including one who is almost of legal age to care for him, must be helpful to the staff, he can't blame them for using it.

"Charlie. Calm down."

Bill, when he speaks, sounds eerily calm. Too calm, in fact, for it to be anything but disgenuine. There is something tense in his voice and, without opening his eyes to check if he's right, Percy can only make suppositions but he's starting to wonder just how badly he has worried his siblings.

"What happened?" His eldest brother inquirres, the sound of his steps indicating that he's getting closer to the bed.

"From what we could gather," Mrs Pomfrey answers, "a curse."

Both his brothers breathe in sharply, Charlie letting out an astonished "What?" before following up with a :

"A curse?! What curse?"

When she tells them, the nurse sounds exhausted, as if already expecting their reaction. Her job must not been easy, having to deal with the families of hurt children all the time. 

Predictably, as soon as they learn that he has had the Bone-breaker cast on him, both Charlie and Bill fall extremely quiet. The curse is famous, as it was often used during the first war against the Dark Lord, especially in interrogation rooms. It's a torture spell, made to injure andhurt as much as possible. No regular first year student is supposed to be confronted to it but, somehow, Percy has. Percy has and, from his own experience as Ron's older brother, watching him lauching himself into danger and coming back hurt every single time, he can relate to them. It's not easy trying to care for someone whose sole existence seems to attract trouble.

"He will not tell us who cursed him, or even how it happened." Mrs Pomfrey sighs. "The best I could get out of him is that he woke up in this state."

"You think somebody attacked him?"

Charlie sounds like he's about to march out of the Infirmary and hunt down the culprit himself, not knowing that said culprit is still in Azkaban for now, and will stay there for almost ten years before finally breaking out. The school nurse, however, is quick to curb his excessive enthusiasm by reminding him, coldly :

"The school staff will, of course, deal with this."

"Of course." Bill agrees, before his brother can add anything.

"In the meantime, I hope you can be here for your little brother. A curse like this can be very traumatising even for adult wizards, he'll need any support he can get."

"Of course!"

This time, Charlie is the one who manages to speak first, sounding offended that he has to be asked to take care of his brother. He then proceeds to assure Mrs Pomfrey that they will do _anything_ to help Percy get better and also catch the culprit, if they ever needed help on that front.

"Very well, Mr Weasley." The woman eventually relents, "I'll let you talk to your brother. Don't stay too long, I know you have classes soon."

This, Percy decides, is the perfect moment to stop pretending like he's sleeping and confront his siblings heads on. He sits up and flings his legs over the side of the bed to stand up. He's still dressed in the old pajamas he wore the night before but, on the bedside table, he can see a perfectly folded up Hogwarts uniform, the fabric too shiny for it to be any of his old hand-me-down robes. He doesn't have any time to go check if they really are for him as, as soon as he starts moving, his brothers are upon him, Bill gripping his arm tightly and checking to see if there is any lingering effect from the curse.

"What the hell happened, Perce?" Charlie tells him. "How did you get hurt on your first day?"

"This must be a record..." Bill mutters beneath his breath, releasing his brother's arm once he has thoroughly examined it.

"Actually, no." Percy corrects him. "The record for the earliest injury in a Hogwarts year was in 1923, when a student tripped on the stairs to enter the Castle and broke their ankle."

His siblings stare at him in silent disbelief, Bill's face quickly cracking up as a huge grin stretches his lips. With a fond expression, he ruffles his hair, an action he has taken up as something of an habit during the time he spent with Percy after his arrival in this new time. Only the knowledge that he _will_ end up taller than the teen stops the boy from whacking his hand away every time he does it. That and the fact that, in his mind, it's still incredible to see his brother alive and free of any scars.

"Well that curse hasn't changed you that much!" The Prefect laughs. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine." He sighs, already annoyed at the doting he'll no doubt have to endure for the rest of the week.

His siblings allow him some privacy to change into his brand new Hogwarts robes, curtesy of Professor Snape, from what the note pinned on them says, and quickly fill him in on what he has missed. He's apparently been in the Infirmary for a few hours, as it's already eleven in the morning. Next to the uniform, his Head of House has left a timetable so Percy take the time to check it, noticing with a wince that he has missed his first Transfiguration class of the year. Thankfully, after that he's free until 1pm.

He had forgotten just how light the first year timetables are. Without any options and his mandatory Prefect reunions and patrols, he has so much free time that it makes him a bit dizzy. Of course, he'll take no time to fill it up with research but still, he forgot how lenient the school system is with the younger students.

"So," Bill tells him, once he's done reading his schedule for the day, "How about a late breakfast?"

Percy tilts his head on the side, glancing at the clock set on the wall above the Infirmary's doors. Unsurprisingly, the time hasn't changed. It's still eleven.

"Are they still serving food?" He wonders, trying to remember the opening hours of the Great Hall. He used to take his breakfast very early, and usually skipped lunch, unless he really had to be here, so he has absolutely no clue as to what the regular meal times actually are.

"Not in the Great Hall," his brother agrees, "but that's not where we're going."

"No way!"

Both of them turn to Charlie, who looks a curious mix between pissed off and astonished. The boy huffs at their look and crosses his arms in front of him.

"I can't believe you're going to show him the kitchen," he complains. "You never wanted to take me."

"Well that's because you keep wanting to sneak food out for your turtles."

"They're not turtles, they're _Firecrabs_."

"There's Firecrabs on the grounds?" Percy asks, confused. From what he can gather, they only started introducing the Firecrabs into the curriculum during his Fourth year, officially because they are easy to take care of but unofficially to save money, because they mostly ate grass and that was way cheaper than having to find rubies for the rock-salamanders that came before them.

"Let's not talk about the Firecrabs." Bill says quickly. "I suppose I can trust you not to sneak food out to every weird animal you take a liking to?" He then asks him, looking pointedly away from Charlie as he speaks.

He nods slowly, slipping his timetable and Professor Snape's note in his pockets.

"Can I really leave the Infirmary like this?" He asks Bill, suddenly doubting the soundness of his brother's plan. Even though he never used to make an habit of injuring himself, even he knows just how dangerous Mrs Pomfrey's wrath can be, and he would very much like to avoid it, especially since it's only his first day of class.

Said brother only shrugs, not looking nearly as concerned as he ought to be, as a Prefect. Percy's glare is thankfully enough for him to stop long enough to scribble down a message intended for the school nurse, explaining where they're going and telling her that it's definitely  _his_ fault if his little brother is out of bed. After that, the Gryffindor wastes no time and grabs him by the shoulder to gently lead him outside. They're followed by Charlie, who still seems a bit sour about what has just transpired.

The three siblings make their way through the empty hallways and down towards the dungeons. Just before reaching the Potions classroom, however, Bill swerves left and enters a small, cramped corridor. In his seven years at Hogwarts, Percy has never set a foot in this part of the building. Now, he knows how Fred and George always managed to find food for their improvised parties.

They eventually stop in front of a large painting of a pear. They both frown when Bill bends down to tickle with the tip of his fingers. However, just like the Fat Lady in front of the Gryffindor Common Room, the portrait opens, letting a clutter of sounds and smells escape from behind it.

"Gentlemen," Bill grins, "I offer you-- The Hogwarts Kitchen."

When they enter the room, both Percy and Charlie have trouble getting their bearing in the place. It's huge, as large as a Common Room, and full to the brim with pots, pans, sinks and plates still full of food. In between the various work stations, small House elves race to finish their tasks, clean pillowcases tied around their waist. One of them notices them and invites them to sit at a small table, crammed in one of the kitchen's corners. Bill complies and, soon, his brother follow suit.

"So this is where it is..." Charlie whispers.

"I swear to Merlin," their older brother threatens, "if you even think about using this place to feed your little beasts, I'll Obliviate you."

As his siblings bicker, Percy looks at the House elves and at the organised chaos around them. During the war, the small creatures had not taken sides as a race, each indivual elf preferring to stay and fight with their masters. Having them as an ally was a privilege, and a huge help, as they were gifted with considerable magical powers but having to fight one was almost always a death-sentence. A single murderous elf could easily defeat three grown wizards and he himself had barely survived his one and only encounter with one of them on the battlefield.

The only wizard to have been able to defeat one of them in a duel had been Harry Potter. The tyrant had enough magical control and power to deflect any wandless magic used by the creature and he had managed to hit it with a Reducto in the ribs strong enough to kill it. Everyone else just hoped they could stall the beasts long enough to escape or, if they couldn't manage that, at least do their best to allow others to run away.

Right now, they seem pretty much harmless, in their white pillowcases, free of any bloodstains, and armed with cooking ustensiles instead of knives and broken wands. Still, anytime one of them comes close to their table, he can't help but shiver.

They are eventually brought a large dish of cold meats with a side of bread, fruits and anything else the cooks have managed to save from breakfast. Despite his uneasiness, and mostly because his brothers keep looking at him expectandly, Percy manages to take a few bite of eggs and toast. As he does so, his eyes catch the ones of a nearby House elf and, suddenly, the perfectly buttered bread tastes like ash and blood in his mouth.

"Here," Bill tells him, handing him a glass full of a foamy, swirling liquid he knows very well by now. "Try some Butterbeer."

"I already know Butterbeer," he points out, both because he has been dragged to the Three Broomsticks by Penny and Oliver often enough to know the taste of it by now and because their mum is very fond of it and often makes it herself for big occasions.

"It's not the same here, they get it directly from Hogsmeade. No offence to mum's cooking."

He takes a sip of the drink and, as always, can't help but make a face at the taste of it. Unlike their mum's, it's way too sweet for him to like it, even in his child's body. Both his brothers look absolutely astonished at his reaction, Bill opening his mouth to say something, then closing it, speechless.

"It's too sweet." He explains, feeling a bit defensive. "Mum's is better."

"It's not!" Charlie protests. "Even the Firecrabs like Mrs Rosmerta's Butterbeer!"

" _Why_ did you give Butterbeer to Firecrabs?!"

Tuning out his siblings' resumed argument, Percy switches his pint of Butterbeer for a glass of cold pumpkin juice. He sips it patiently, looking at the House elves. It's a bit hard to tear himself away from the memories of bloodshed and gore when he sees them but, as he has found out in the year since he came back in time, he can't run away from everything. He'll be better off reacclimating himself to the things, especially considering how important they are in Hogwarts. Stubborn, he keeps his gaze set on them, ignoring his trembling hands and the fact that his vision is starting to blur ever so slightly.

"Anyways," Charlie eventually says, putting his empty Butterbeer on the table, "let's not talk about this. We'll end up fighting again."

Bill looks about to retort something but then he catches Percy's eyes and, grudgingly, he nods. Changing the subject, he turns back to his younger brother and offers :

"Do you want to walk around the castle a bit? I can show you all the shortcuts."

Probably anticipating that his answer would be negative, he doesn't leave him time to open his mouth and stands up, tapping his shoulder lightly to indicate that he should follow him. After hesitating for a while, Percy eventually does, carefully avoiding any contact with the House elves as he walks past them. Looks like he won't be making any trip to the Library this morning. He should have expected things to turn out this way as soon as he saw his brothers in the Infirmary, they have always been very talented at distracting him from his work.

 

It's only when they get to the Quidditch Pitch and Bill has already shown him most things there is to see in the park and near the Lake that he remembers Mrs Pomfrey telling his brothers not to be late for class. He can't help but feel guilty at that, not fond of making other people skip classes when they could have easily made it there.

Bill and Charlie, however, don't seem to care.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lmao chapters actually do start to get longer at some point. Also I'm on break so I'm gonna use that to get a bit more written down, and also finish some of my side fics.  
> Thanks to everyone for reading.
> 
> Oh and -- Rn I'm taking it slow like we're three chapters in and it's only been two days. I usually don't write like that. Things will be moving faster soon, I don't like the Hogwarts setting very much but it is, quite unfortunately, necessary for where I want to take this story.


	4. Anniversary

It takes weeks for the Slytherin children to try and talk to Percy.

Snakes aren't known for their bravery and he hasn't been very kind to them ever since he was sorted. He tries, at first, tries to join in on their conversations and jokes, tries to get excited about flying lessons and holidays and learning new spells. He tries to befriend them because, deep down, he knows that he has to, has to sacrifice the part of himself that recoils in disgust at the sight of a future Death Eater if he wants to better his chances of saving his family. He tries.

And he fails.

Because, no matter what body he's inhabiting, what his voice sounds like and what people see when they look at him, he's twenty-eight, not eleven, and his thoughts are full of planning and dread, not wonder and excitement. He can't find it in himself to laugh at a twelve year old's attempt at humour, can't bear the way they inevitably start yelling at the first occasion, causing him to flinch and reach for his wand every single time. First years are still children, prone to playing and messing around with everything they can get their hands on. He's not like that, he doesn't get excited over chocolate frogs anymore.

( _Sometimes he wishes he still could_ )

So, instead of pushing it and, perhaps, because he's a bit weak, he retreats, steps back and avoids interacting with them. He limits his social interactions to the letters he sends his family every week and the meetings his older brothers force him to attend. They spend a lot of time showing off their knowledge of the castle, not realising that he has already learned everything they have to teach him. It leaves him a lot of time for research, both in the old students registries, the ones he spends entire nights pouring over, hoping to find a clue as to the Dark Lord's identity, and the one of his closest followers, and in dark, forbidden ritual books he manages to sneak away from the Reserve. Dark magic is an interesting subject and, as that old Muggle general wrote " _To know your enemy, you must become your enemy_ ". Of course, he doesn't intend on becoming a dark wizard but still, it's useful to know more about this type of magic in order to fight it.

That and, if by chance he can stumble upon the methods the Dark Lord used to fuel his immortality, it would save him a lot of trouble.

 

So, when the other first years are in the primary Common Room, playing exploding snap and chess, or out in the coutyard, learning the rules of gobstones, he sits in his bed, curtains drawn and books laid out in front of him, notes strewn about on the mattress. He studies hard, for hours at a time, enjoying the familiarity of it all and deploring the fact that, this time around, he can't test the theories he has about what he's reading. His core is too weak to allow him to use any kind of strong magic and he has absolutely no desire to corrupt his magic by falling into the dark arts. He knows what using this sort of spells early on can do to one's core and he doesn't want to experience it.

He came back in time to destroy Death Eaters, not become one of them.

All in all, he's nothing much more than a stranger to the other first years, for five weeks, none of them attempt to contact him, gladly ignoring him and his strange behaviour, and, for five weeks, he's perfectly content with his situation, even if he does get very little sleep and has to deal with two _very_ overbearing brothers.

And then, one day, he makes the mistake of sitting down in the primary Common Room instead of going directly to his dormitory after class, and this is when _she_ comes.

 

_She_ is Isha Serwyn, a first year, with brown skin and dark hair cut in a bob. Out of all the eleven year old, she is the one he remembers the best, being the girl Slytherin Prefect in his former life, and therefore someone he has had to work with often. He remembers her as a cold, manipulative teenager, all sly smiles and sharp tongue, the quintessential snake. She had been professional, though, and he has always admired her work ethic.

Every time he looks at her, it's like looking through a window leading directly to his old time and to his Hogwarts years. He remembers nights spent at the Three Broomsticks, all of his year's Prefects sitting together around a table, trying to figure out how to keep his brothers from destroying the school before the end of the term. They had not been friends, not by far, but, still, they were cordial to each other and that was saying something considering the state of the Gryffindor/Slytherin relationship back then.

 

"Weasley." She says, sitting in front of him as he finishes the last portion of his Transfiguration homework. Her eyes bear into him, making him instinctively raise his head to stare back at her. She looks way too confident for an eleven year old, and, for a moment, he wants to wipe the smirk off her face with a nasty curse. It takes quite a bit of self-control to restrain himself from doing so as she leans forwards and starts talking to him again :

"You will help me with the Potions homework."

She looks and sounds absolutely certain that Percy is going to drop everything he is doing to come help her with her essay and it surprises him so much that, for a good ten seconds, he just stares at her, eyebrows raised. Her statement, because it is one, there is no interrogation in her voice, is so similar to an actual order that it reminds him of being a member of a squad, a long, long time ago, obeying someone much more experienced and competent than him, back at the very beginning...

Lost in his memories, he takes too long to gather himself and, already, Isha is stressing :

"I _will_ pay you, of course."

She says that with a smirk, as if the fact that he needs money is a joke and not a very serious, very dire situation his family is in. He stares at her a bit longer, astonished that she dares come to him with such a request and such a fundamental lack of respect. He doesn't like being treated like this, doesn't like having to talk to another slytherin when he could have ignored them and the memories they bring.

He opens his mouth to tell her to piss off, hands clenching into fists at his sides, homework all but forgotten in his lap but she beats him to it once again, adding quickly :

"Think carefully about this. My family is powerful. And rich. There's a lot I can do for you."

It's incredible, it's like every cliché coming true under his eyes. The spoiled pureblood girl trying to use her parents' power and influence to manipulate him into doing her biddings. It's not, he has learned, a common Slytherin behaviour. Most members of the House are pretty normal teenagers and children, if a bit more ambitious than the usual fourteen years old, but there is actually a large majority of half-bloods in their rank, and quite a few muggleborns as well. In that context, Isha's attempt to use him is all the more appalling.

Use him.

Use her family.

Oh.

_Oh_.

This is...

 

Silently, Percy looks at her, at her smirk and at her confident expression. An eleven year old, already persuaded to be a master of politics, above everyone else in their year in social status and wealth. She wants to use him, who has proven to be, by far, the best in every class they have taken. She wants something he has, something she can never have herself, because she is not as talented, or rather because she has not time travelled from the future and kept a wealth of knowledge in her head.

And he...

He wants something from her too.

Her family is a big name in darker spheres, has been known for centuries for its tendencies to use dark rituals and magic. Their library is infamous all over the Wizarding world for having been perquisitionned several time by the Aurors and for having more than a quarter of it seized for containing forbidden magic. She has easy access to what he's looking for, probably has a lot more information on dark and blood magic at her disposal than he could ever hope for.

He can't antagonise her.

It hurts, it hurts deeply to have to bow down to a child like her, to someone who would not have hesitated to kill him a few years ago, but he has to do it. He has to swallow his pride and his honour for the good of his family and for the future. Isha Selwyn is his door into the obscure and he can _not_ shut it right now.

So, instead of telling her off like he so desperately wants to, he lowers his head, grits his teeth and, with a strained voice, asks her :

"How much?"

Her eyes glint with malice, smirk stretching into a victorious smile as she answers a sum well above what Percy ever got in all of his Hogwarts years combined. That she can part with this much money in exchange for a simple essay is a blatant display of power and wealth. She's, quite awkwardly, telling him how superior she is, how much money she has.

It's not very effective, however, because, in the end, the money is going to be Percy's and that simple fact stops him from backtracking.

After years of being the Minister's obedient little dog, he has to bow down in front of another pompous idiot, and this one is only eleven years old.

Sacrificying his pride for his interests has always been a strong point of his, and he knows he's not going to regret this, no matter how hard his heart beats in his chest and how much he hates himself as he accepts the money Isha hands over to him. This is necessary, he knows it. He has to do it.

It's not like there's any other solution, any other _safe_ solution to stop the Dark Lord.

 

Later, at night, he has a nightmare. It's terrible and painful and, when he wakes up, he's still shaking violently from all the times the Cruciatus Curse has been cast on him as he slept. The tremors in his hands last until late into the afternoon, a deep ache having settled over his whole body.

 

From now on, he does every one of Isha's Potions homework. She soon becomes the second best at this class, to Professor Snape's great satisfaction.

He's still the best though. Even with a great deal of help, it would be impossible for an eleven year old to trump a twenty-eight year old in an art that requires knowledge, patience and precision. The girl never stood a chance.

He doesn't know if that makes him feel better or like even more of an idiot.

 

**oOo**

 

The twenty-fourth of October is the birthday of Ginny's death.

Out of all of his siblings, her passing is the one that touched him the most, probably because he was actually there, holding her as she died. Maybe because of the way she was killed, too, bloody and messy and so cruel it still makes him want to scream.

The twenty-fourth of October is the birthday of Ginny's death.

He ignores it, at first, talks to his brothers in the morning and reads the letter his parents sent him. He goes to class and finishes his and Isha's essays, counts his newly acquirred Galleons, hates himself for a few minutes, loses himself into his research again.

He doesn't go to dinner.

He's going to regret it, too, later. Bill and Charlie spend an almost obsessive amount of time looking after him and there's no doubt in his mind that his absence from the Great Hall will be noticed and then reported to their parents. However, right now, he couldn't care less about this, couldn't give less of a damn about what his parents are going to think about his behaviour.

For the entire evening, he stays in his dormitory, laying on his back in the middle of his bed, motionless. When the other boys finally come in for the night, he doesn't acknowledge their presence, doesn't even move to fully close the curtains around him. Instead, he just watches the dark green fabric hanging above him, lost in its folds and its shadows, lost in his own head.

 

Sleep edges at his consciousness and he lets himself doze just lightly enough to have some images resurface in his head, flashes of red and of beating hearts, floating in the air. As always, he's tired but he's in enough control of his body to stop himself from falling any deeper. He knows that any kind of deep slumber will cause him to have a violent nightmare and, recently, they have been getting more and more destructive.

He can't allow that. Can't afford to hide the result of yet another night of muffled screaming and painful memory, Snape is already suspicious enough. The fact that the man still has to confront him about the events of early September, when he has clearly been leading his own little investigation on the side, is worrying and, right now, Percy wants no part in the professor's little games. Slytherins are exhausting.

At some point, in the middle of the night, the breathing and the shuffling of the boys around him becomes too much to bear and it's all he can do not to launch himself out of the dormitory. He's in control, though so, slowly, silently, he leaves the room, wand clutched tightly in his hand, still fully dressed in his school uniform. Every single noise sounds like a gunshot, it's so loud, everything is so loud, so vibrant.

 

He gets out of the Slytherin quarters.

 

He has no idea of the hour, as he walks up the stairs leading out of the dungeons, only knows that it's the night, by now, and that there's probably at least one Prefect patrolling the corridors. He shouldn't be out of his dormitory, really, but he can't stay there, surrounded by sleeping children, most of them future murderers, instrumental in his baby sister's death. It would take only one word to kill them all, and he doesn't know if he's strong enough to stop himself from saying it.

The thought makes his head swirl and his stomach lurch. He has to stop abruptly, collapsing against a nearby stone wall to grip his head and mentally yell at himself for considering such a thing. He's not a Death Eater, he can't kill innocent people, these children have done nothing yet, except wear the same face as some of the people he used to fight, a long time ago.

With something that sounds and feels a lot like a sob, he lets himself fall to his knees, entire body trembling. At some point, his wand has slipped from his fingers and is now rolling away from him, slowly. He doesn't make a move to grab it, doesn't know if he has enough strength left to even attempt it.

Everything is so blurry...

He watches it, ten inches and a half, elm wood and phoenix feather, the exact same one he had the first time around, and he wants to scream when he remembers what he can do with it, how easy it would be to burn the castle to the ground, to go after all of the future Death Eaters in the school and get rid of them.

Maybe this would be enough to turn the war around, if the Dark Lord lost all of his younger follower base. Maybe he would even have enough time to slip into the adult Death Eaters' houses and kill them in their sleep. Maybe this is what he should have done all along.

He feels sick.

He heaves but he has eaten nothing all day, having avoided lunch as well, so nothing leaves his mouth but bile and a bit of spit. His throat and eyes burn, his breathing is laboured.

He is sick.

He has to be sick to think about stuff like this, to want to kill children.

( _Maybe he should just have given up back then_ )

 

"Holy—"

 

There's a voice, cutting through the fog in his mind. Someone is cursing, walking towards him, running. Something that feels a lot like fingers, cool and wet, for some reason, touch his cheek, his forehead and he reaches desperately for his wand, only grasping air when he realises that it's not here, it's not at his belt.

He lost it.

Where is it?

Where is it? Where is it? Where is it?Where is it? Where is it? Where is it?Where is it? Where is it? Where is it?Where is it? Where is it? Where is it?Where is it? Where is it? Where is it?Where is it? Where is it? Where is it?Where is it? Where is it? Where is it?Where is it? Where is it? Where is it?

 

He's panicking.

He's...

 

Something in his hands.

Wood.

Warm, familiar.

His wand.

Someone is speaking, talking to him. It's not calm, it's not reassuring. The person sounds scared, lost. Just like him. Just like him.

There are a thousand spells at his lips and all of them can maim or kill, there are a thousand spells at his lips but he doesn't use any of them because the stranger sounds scared and he is scared and he wants to hide and forget and just disappear.

Blood on his hands. A heart, still beating, being ripped out of a ribcage.

Organs on the street.

Fingers on his face.

Ginny's eyes losing their focus, her head dropping, unable to support itself.

A voice in his ears.

Harry screaming, crying, and him crying too, unable to do anything but sob as his sister, his only sister, dies. There's only three of them left now, three out of seven. Soon, he will be the last.

His wand in his hands.

Someone is there.

Who is it?

Why are they scared?

Why can't he hear what they're telling him?

Are they even speaking to him?

He...

Who is he?

This looks like Hogwarts, is it Hogwarts? Hasn't Hogwarts been destroyed? Where are all the bodies? Where is Fred? Where are the children? Why isn't there any Death Eaters trying to kill him? Why isn't his arm broken? Why? Why? Why?

 

"Percy!"

 

He opens his eyes.

A boy is crouching in front of him, eyes wide and cheeks glistening with tears. There's snot running under his nose and his face is contorted in such a distressed expression that it makes him instinctively want to reach out and comfort him. He's young, too, probably still a first year, terrified of what's happening in the school, of the war and the dead...

( _It's not the war anymore_ )

Slowly, he tries to get his senses back under control, tries to calm his breathing. The child seems to notice this and, immediately, grows silent, looking at him with a small amount of hope in his eyes.

( _You know this boy_ )

Once he manages to breathe without feeling like his lungs are on fire, Percy clears his throat, hands still shaking. He's dizzy and his legs and arms feel weak. It's taking all of his energy to stay upright.

 

"I'm--- I'm sorry." He tells the boy. "I don't know what--"

"It's fine. It's just-- I was a bit scared. For you."

The only thing lighting up the child's face is the moonlight coming through one of the large windows on their right but, despite this, it seems extremely familiar. Percy can only hope that this familiarity comes from the boy being someone from his former life and not one of his roommates having followed him outside. He can survive having to obey Isha but he can't bear any Slytherin knowing of his mental health issues.

 

"I'm fine." He tells the kid, trying his best to comfort him. "Thank you for staying with me."

"I can stay a bit more!" The familiar stranger blurts out, hands gripping his shoulders. "At least until you're feeling better!"

"I'm already feeling better!" Percy points out, lying through his teeth.

"You're not! You're shaking!"

They stay in silence for a moment and he's about to try to stand up and leave when the boy pleads, in a very small voice :

"Please?"

Leaving after that, after the child has made it clear that he's been quite stressed out and worried by their encounter, would be cruel and Percy, despite not having much consideration for his own pride and for the price he has to pay to achieve his goals, always does his best not to be a cruel person. It's very much a weakness, in most situations, but his upbringing makes it very hard to act like an insensitive prick, even if his life would be simpler were he one.

Instead of answering the boy directly, he leans back against the wall, sighing. He's tired and sore and still nauseous and, right now, he wants nothing more than to be back at the Burrow with his family all under the same roof. But he's not. Instead, he's sitting in the middle of a corridor with a small kid, right after having the mother of all panic attacks. This is not what he envisionned when he planned going back in time.

 

"What are you even doing here?" He asks the kid, to distract himself from his dark train of thoughts.

Said kid snorts, then shifts to sit next to him, their bodies almost touching.

"Snuck out to practice flying, you?"

"I couldn't stay in my dormitory."

"Makes sense."

They stay silent for several minutes, Percy's breathing slowly but surely calming down and his shaking growing less and less pronounced. Next to him, the boy puts his hands behind his head and crosses his legs, to make himself more comfortable.

"How did you know my name?" He wonders.

The child shrugs, answering :

"Your brothers keep talking about you in the Common Room. Plus, everyone in Gryffindor knows who you are."

"Who am I?" Percy asks, noting that his companion of the night is a lion.

"The only Weasley not to be one of us."

"Is that a bad thing?" He wonders, fingers reaching for the edges of his robes, coloured green, like his House.

Oliver shrugs again and, now that he has figured out who he is, his face is so familiar that it hurts, memories coming back to him in a rush, some of them happy, most of them bittersweet, not quite sad yet.

"You don't look very mean. Or dangerous."

"Is that what slytherins are?"

"It's what they say you are."

"They?"

"The older gryffs. The Prefects and everything. Not Bill, though."

"Well-- That's not very nice."

Oliver laughs, sounding a lot like the child he is in that instant. He smells a bit like rain and mud, like someone who just snuck out to go play Quidditch unsupervised and in the middle of the night. He hasn't changed, despite the time travel, despite the fact that he's only a kid right now. It feels comforting, somehow.

"You guys must say that about us, too! Don't lie!"

"I wouldn't know," Percy answers him, "I don't talk to the other slytherins that much."

"Why?" His former roommate asks, sounding perplexed. "Aren't they your House mates?"

This time, it's Percy's turn to shrug, not really knowing how to explain to the gryffindor how hard it is for him to talk to the child version of people who tried to murder him in the past, how difficult it is to pretend to be as innocent and normal as the rest of them. In the end, he settles for silence, because there is no way he's going to say anything about what is truly happening to him to an eleven years old.

Oliver doesn't seem to be offended by his silence. Instead, he shifts slightly and turns towards him, eyes glinting in the moonlight.

"D'you want to come with me?" He asks.

Perplexed, Percy frowns.

"What?"

"Do you want to come flying with me?"

"What? Why would I--"

"Not right now, of course. But someday. If you're-- you know. Bored. Or something. I often fly at night so if you're bored. At night."

His tone is full of insecurities and it's all it takes for Percy to understand that the other boy is offering him a way out of staying alone during his worst nights. It's sweet, in a way, but he absolutely can't accept it. Oliver is only eleven and he, he is way too damaged for any child to try to help him. He knows he is self-destructive, knows he has had these tendencies for a long time, and he can't allow himself to hurt a child, especially one he used to be friends with.

"I don't like flying very much," he offers diplomatically, "but thank you for the offer."

"Ah. Well. If you ever feel like it..."

The gryffindor sounds disappointed by his refusal but he's still a kid, he'll recover from it. With a smile he knows the other can't see, Percy tells him, his tone as friendly as he can make it, because Oliver deserves this at least :

"Thank you for staying with me. And-- I'll consider it."

"You're welcome!" The kid beams. "This was no trouble at all! I'm glad you're feeling better."

 

It's strange, Percy thinks when they finally go their separate way, Oliver to his bedroom and him to the Reserve, gryffindors really do have a tendency to put their nose in his business. If he's not more careful, soon all of his former House is going to be aware of his issues.

Now, he can only hope that what happened tonight is not going to reach the ears of his brothers.

That would be disastrous.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Saturday where I live and I wanted to get this done with.
> 
> Anyways, I might change the update schedule to once every two weeks, I'm entering an exam period + my job has been busy lately. I'll have to wait and see if I can keep up the one chapter a week rythm. If not, I'll unfortunately have to slow down until I have more time.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who read and is still reading this story!


	5. In the minds of snakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snake dude talks to time traveler, they don't like each other very much.

It's the first of November and Snape wants to see him.

Despite the fact that it's very unusual for a teacher to ask a specific student to visit them for anything else than an academic issue, Percy is surprised that it has taken the man so long to summon him. He has spent the entire month of September expecting the Death Eater to drag him into his office and beat (perhaps literally, perhaps not) the truth out of him. However, said Death Eater has done nothing of the sort and, eventually, he figured that he had let it go, deeming it less important since, in the end, Percy is not a _real_ slytherin.

Once again, he was mistaken.

This tends to happen a lot, lately.

Now, knowing that Snape did not ever drop the issue of him being injured on his first day at school, he wonders what the man has been doing with this information all along. It's very likely that he has led his own investigation on what happened that night, talked about it with the other professors and maybe even with the children in his year. Following that train of thoughts, there are only two possible reasons for him to have him come to his office : either he found out what happened or he exhausted all possible leads and had to resort to talking to him in person.

Considering the actual reasons behind his injury, Percy believes the second possibility to be much more likely. Unless the man is a Legilimens, and one powerful enough to push past the seals Luna has engraved in his mind, there is no way he can know about how strong and dangerous he really is.

 

"Weasley." The man drawls when he enters his office, looking disappointed that he hasn't dropped dead on his way here. "Sit down."

There are two wooden, uncomfortable looking chairs in front of the teacher's desk and, obediently, Percy sits down in one of them. The wood is unnaturally cold and there is no doubt in his mind that it's supposed to feel this way. Clearly, the Potions master doesn't expect anyone to be having any fun when in an appointment with him.

 

"Sir—" He begins, keeping his tone quiet and respectful. "Why am--"

"I'll be asking the questions here." Snape says, looking at him coldly. Percy never noticed this about him before but he has a particularly distubing stare, unblinking, focused and oddly intense, the like of he has never seen before, except on the rare occasions he has talked to Albus Dumbledore face to face.

"Of course, sir." He instinctively replies, keeping his observations to himself. "I'm sorry, sir."

His apology makes the snake raise an appreciative eyebrow, his lips inching ever so slightly upwards. When he's not seething at bumbling pupils, Snape actually cuts a properly terrifying figure. Or at least he probably does for regular students. It takes a lot to intimidate Percy, nowadays.

"I'm glad to see you take after your eldest brother, Weasley." The Potions master notes, no doubt referring to Bill's diplomatic tendencies, as opposed to Charlie's excitedness. "I don't care much for foolishness."

"Thank you, sir."

Snape gives him a cold, empty smile and, suddenly, he straightens up. He's much taller than Percy, having the benefits of owning an adult body, and the black robes he favours make him look like a figure of doom, looming over his desk and the boy behind it with a cruel smirk.

"Over the past few months, I have – researched what happened on the second of September. I trust you remember what I'm referring to?" He waits for him to nod before marching on : "And from what I have gathered, you were, by all accounts, telling us the truth."

Percy barely stops himself from flinching upon hearing that, praying desperately that the man has not found out anything compromising about him. He can't allow anyone to know about who he is, especially not if the person who discovered it is a former Death Eater. As discreetly as he can, he slips his right hand into his pocket, touching his wand. He'll have to draw it as quickly as he can, if the situation is as dire as it seems to be.

Obliviating Snape won't be easy, but it's better than killing him. As good as he is at murdering people, he never had to disguise an assassination before and he'd rather not have to start doing it now. He came back in time to save people, not cause more deaths.

However, despite being as cold as ever, Snape doesn't seem to be all that agressive, or even suspicious. In fact, he looks calmer than he usually is, stating everything in a flat, perfectly neutral tone, his gaze the only thing remotely dark about him.

 

"Upon discovering this, I have contacted your family and your Healer immediately, as well as your teachers."

Percy winces at the mention of his family and Snape obviously notices it, his eyes narrowing. His voice doesn't waver when he adds, almost distractedly :

"You do know that the fact you are followed by a Healer should have been mentioned?"

"My—"

He catches himself at the beginning of his sentence, glances down at his hands, his fingers digging deep into the flesh of his tighs. He's not good at conversations like this.

"My family didn't want me to--"

"Your family" -the word sounds disgusting in his mouth, despite how neutral his tone is, he can't hide how much disdain he has for Percy's parents- "didn't want me to know anything about you. Me, Weasley."

"I'm-"

"Don't bother apologizing, this isn't your mistake. I fixed it anyways, I have been talking to Mrs Clarkes for a few weeks now."

 

In Percy's mind, Mrs Clarkes is nothing but a blurry memory, the one of an elderly woman smiling kindly at him, holding his hand and asking him to explain why he feels like he has to _escape_. He knows that she is the Healer that handled him the most after his first breakdown when he came through the Rift, but he knows it in a distant way, just like he knows that some dragons like fish and that Accio can be a destructive spell. He has done his best to avoid the witch and, until now, had managed to do it quite nicely. Of course, he always knew that his parents kept in contact with her, but had never expected his Head of House to follow suit.

It seems so out of character for Snape but then he _is_ a slytherin now, and it is the man's responsibility to take care of him. That he has let him be injured on the first night in the castle must have injured his pride quite a bit, and also puts him at risks legally speaking.

"Your parents" -once again, that disgust, that disdain- "foolishly wanted to come see you in person when I explained the matter to them." The idea of it is enough to draw a snort out of the wizard, even if parents visiting a student isn't that unheard of. "This is, of course, unacceptable. This is an internal matter, Weasley, and I will deal with it personally."

 

And Percy realises just how much this matters to the professor, just how important for him that the issue does not leave the walls of the Slytherin quarters, that no one else ever has to deal with it. He can't decide if it's because the Death Eater doesn't want anyone snooping into the snake dormitories or because he feels some form of duty to protect the pupils under his care but, anyways, it serves Percy's interests. He's much better off keeping his parents out of his business, even if he would have liked them to be completely unaware of said business in the first place

"What you have, boy, is a complete lack of control of your magic, over your mind. So much so that you have become dangerous. This is unacceptable. You need to learn how to control your emotions."

He says that with a pointed look, as if Percy was feeling particularly angry, or disturbed, and it was becoming noticeable. It's a bit confusing since the only thing he's feeling right now is a slight anxiousness and the desire to be anywhere else but in Snape's office. He checks his expression for any trace of unwanted emotions. There is none.

Perplexed, he listens silently to what his teacher says next :

"I am going to teach you the basis of an art meant to help you with these issues. Just enough for you not to bother anyone with accidental magic again. From what I heard from your Healer, this is something that you need dearly."

For the first time since Percy entered the room, Snape's mask slips and, for a second, he looks incredibly annoyed at him for not fixing his own problems himself, something he would have had no problem doing, was everyone else in his life not so involved in picking it apart.

He's handed a large, heavy and slightly scuffed book and told to read the first three chapters for the next week before being sent back to his dormitory.

 

The tome is less than a thousand pages long. Percy should be done by Wednesday.

 

**oOo**

 

Occlumency is not a foreign subject to him, but it is one he never really had the time, or the desire to study. During the war, he was taught how to shield his mind and how to detect any intrusion by a Legilimens, but the knowledge was purely practical and no one ever thought about digging deeper into how the whole thing worked. All that mattered was being able to push a mind invader away and avoiding being mind-controlled by one of the Dark Lord's eaters. Even Percy, with his love of theory and research, did not care much for the Mind Arts back then.

He still doesn't.

The thing is, they are dead useful, but it doesn't take a genius to master them. As there often is with magic, there are many ways to control them, one being much simpler than the other, but also much less flexible. A bit like an Animagus can go through the process with magic and mind only or use a Potion to make the transformation easier, an Occlumen can either ward his mind with pure magic or learn how to do it from thoughst only. As it is, the second option is much more subtle and powerful but, considering that there are less than ten true Legilimens alive, at least according to the Ministry's records, it's also pointless. A waste of time.

However, even if learning Occlumency over again, this time using his thoughts and not his magic, seems like a complete waste of time to him, there is one aspect of the book Snape has given him that eventually proves to be useful to Percy. And it turns out to be the first chapter.

Meditation.

Organising your thoughts, learning how to think about something dispassionately, controlling your emotions, your fear.

 

At first, he's afraid to try it, afraid to give up the tight control he has over his thoughts, but he's a gryffindor, and gryffindors don't let something like fear stop them.

Three days after his meeting with Snape, he sits down in the center of his bed, in the middle of the night, when everyone else is already asleep, and he closes his eyes, trying to think about nothing, to keep himself calm, level.

It works for a good three seconds before he starts thinking about every book he still has to check for rituals in the Library. After ten minutes spent struggling with his thoughts, he gives up and, instead of trying to think about nothing, he lets his mind drift, trying instead to keep himself from becoming emotional.

When he eventually wanders into darker theory, his memories of the war being awakened by the reminder of a dark grimor he has read recently, he tries to let the hate, fear and pain wash over him, tries to accept it, instead of rejecting it.

It doesn't work and he spends half-an-hour clutching his wand desperately after that, chest heaving and eyes unable to focus.

It doesn't work but, the next day, he tries again.

And again.

And again.

 

In the end, it becomes almost an habit. Whenever something happens to him, whenever a bad memory strikes him in the middle of the day, leaving him panting and panicking, he takes time to think about it later in the night. Unlike what the book says, it never gets easier, he never manages to keep himself from being deadly afraid whenever he pushes himself too far, thinking about the war, but, still, he keeps doing it.

Because it makes him feel in control.

Sure, he panics, sure he's afraid, but it's because he chose to be. And, slowly, he's able to calm himself quicker and quicker. Half an hour becomes twenty five minutes, then twenty...

Eventually, he stops crying.

 

It's not good, it's probably never going to be good, but it's _better_.

When he realises that he's making progress and that it's all thanks to Snape's Occlumency book, of all things, he can't help but be astonished. He's never going to be a proper Occlumen, but studying the Mind Arts, even distantly, did actually teach him something valuable.

 

For the first time since he entered the castle's grounds, Percy feels like himself.

 

The worst thing about it is that he has Snape to thank for it.

 

Bloody Death Eater.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somebody kicked me in the face during karate practice and now I have a concussion. Yeet.
> 
> Update, two days after I wrote this : I actually had a concussion. F. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	6. Dark books, dark hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy does research, also more of my Brotp for this fic.

Percy doesn't like Snape but he has to admit that, for once, the man has helped him quite a lot. Being in Hogwarts isn't quite so difficult anymore now that he knows how to center himself and think about it calmly. The edge of panic that has been under all of his conscious thoughts since he entered the school has receeded a little, even if it's still there, in the background, and he allows himself to relax a little. He isn't in danger, he knows it. Plus, he has time, a lot of time, to do what he needs to do. In his former life, Voldemort came back when he was eighteen, and he's still eleven, he can allow himself to live a little. Maybe.

So, instead of spending entire nights holed up in the Library or curling in his bed, trying desperately not to fall asleep, he tries to get more rest and to spend more time with the other children in his year. He still doesn't like to be with them very much and has no interest in their games but he makes an effort to be  _there_. He sits next to Isha and Gwen when they play chess and he does his best to hang around Connor and his friends at lunch, even if he doesn't talk to them. It's not much, considering how he had previously planned to befriend them all to get access to their families' various resources, but it's still better than what he did before and this small progress makes him feel like he's being productive for a change.

His brothers notice the change too and, for the first time since the beginning of the year, they leave him alone for the week end, telling him to "go spend time with his friends", instead of following them around.

He's disturbed, at first, wondering if this is a way for them to get rid of him. Maybe they finally grew tired of having to drag him around, baby sitting your eleven years old brother can get quite annoying, after all, Percy remembers this much from when Ron was a kid. He can't blame them if they don't want to deal with his presence anymore.

Bill's face is so earnest, however, when he tells him that he's happy he has made friends that he knows the older boy isn't lying. His siblings, being the good lions they are, can't make a distinction between the friendship between the younger gryffindors and the somewhat strained relationships of the slytherins. All the better for him, really : as long as they believe him to be hanging out with other first years, he has free reign to do whatever he wants, without them following him everywhere he goes.

On this first Saturday of fraternal freedom, after he's done with his and Isha's essays, he packs a few writing supplies into his old, beat-up bag and carefully hides the book he plans to read under them. It took him months to find it among the various and sometimes ridiculous topics found in the Reserve but, now that he has it, he intends to make the most of his discovery. He had no idea that Hogwarts kept books about rituals like these ones but it's exactly the kind of documents he's looking for in his quest to find the source of the Dark Lord's immortality.

The tome is so dark, however, full to the brim with obscure magic, its pages reeking of death and decay, that he can't afford to read it in his Dormitory, when anyone could walk in on him learning about one of the most taboo forms of magic. He'll have to go outside to study it. It's nearly December and the weather has gone from mildly cold to absolutely freezing, there's no way he'll be interrupted if he finds a spot under the bridge, or next to the Lake. No student in their right mind would spend the afternoon there.

Using some of the lesser known passageways to get out of the castle, he keeps his eyes peeled for any one of his brothers, or one of their many friends. Thankfully, he manages to avoid detection and is soon out in the crisp, cold November air. He thinks about using a heating charm on his clothes but his magic is young and fickle and, asides from the spells he's learning in class, he isn't sure how much his core can handle. He doesn't want to faint from overexertion because he used a spell he isn't supposed to know yet, that would be such a terrible waste of time.

He finds a spot under a large, thankfully not enchanted, willow tree, right next to the Lake and settles down to read his latest find. When he takes it out from his bag, the book's cover seems colder than it has any rights to be and the pages shiver slightly, despite the fact that the air is perfectly still, with no wind or even a light breeze in sight.

This goes against all of his father's advices on dealing with charmed objects but, by now, Percy has used a lot of controversial and dangerous materials for his research, this one is safe compared to what he and Luna handled, back in the days.

With his fingers, he traces the dark red letter that glare at him, carved on the leather cover of the manuscript. **'An introduction to blood magic and blood rituals'** , it says and, from the title only, Percy can tell that this was once supposed to be an educational book, back when Hogwarts' curriculum was much more lenient with what it allowed to be taught to its students.

If the Ministry learned that such a book was in Dumbledore's custody, they would be outraged and it would make the headlines of every British magic newspapers, except maybe the Quibbler. To think that, once, blood rituals were taught in the school is enough to make Percy's head spin with questions. When did they stop teaching this art? Why? Why did they even do it in the first place when blood magic is widely considered to be one of the most dangerous and despicable forms of magic on earth?

Dangerous and despicable, two words that can easily be used to described the Dark Lord, now that he thinks about it. If he did use a form of blood magic to gain his immortality, it wouldn't surprise him.

He rests his shoulder against the tree and crosses his legs, preparing himself for a long, uncomfortable read. It's about two in the afternoon so he has four hours before the first years reunite in the Common room for their weekly Exploding Snaps game, something he's been attending for the past three weeks. He needs to make him seem at least friendly to them and, therefore, he needs to be at this game. Four hours isn't much but he'll have to make it work.

**An introduction to blood magic and blood rituals**

_**Original text by Professor Richart Selmy, translated into modern English by Edith Mayweather** _

  
  


**Blood rituals and enchantments are amongst the most powerful and respected forms of linking magic and, as such, have been studied by many scholars throughout the centuries. Mastering this art is, as you must know, a noble way to master one's own body and mind and to overcome any hardships the limits of the human body might pause. Unlike other, more theorical schools, linking magic is deeply connected to the user's flesh and core and will, therefore, be naturally more efficient.**

**This manuscript aims to explain the foundations of the blood arts, beginning with their origins and ending with a demonstration of its use as well as a few simple rituals to accompany you on the first steps of your journey. This is by no mean an exhaustive work, as it is purposefully aimed as students such as you but it is enough, I hope, to bring more young, brillant minds to see the potential of such magic. If you are seduced by it, like I was before you, you will find yourself on the verge of immense magical powers and physical prowess, able to accomplish feats no other form of magic will ever be strong enough to reproduce.**

**The first thing you need to know about blood magic is that it draws deep within your body's innate magic. It allows you to connect with a source of strength that would be forever out of your reach under other circumstances, it gives you the opportunity to use this strength to turn yourself into a better, stronger wizard. When you learn to draw upon your body's magic, you learn how to become more than a simple spell user, you become a magical being, truly and fully.**

**Using your body's magic can be achieved through various means, including sacrificying a part of you, like your flesh, bones or even soul to link said magic to the effect you want it to produce but the best and most efficient way to do it and harnest such power is to use your own blood.**

**While bones and flesh can prove to be powerful bases for a ritual, they are, in the end, unable to be used with any form of subtlety. Using bone dust will give you temporary magical strength, this is a fact, but it will never bring your body to the heights it can reach when using blood, and this is because of one simple reason : using blood magic allows you to make use of writing.**

**Blood magic is, in its essence, another form of magical writing, be it through Runes or other langauge systems, that doesn't bother with channelling magic through the ink and instead uses the purest source of magic one can find : the one that comes from a wizard's flesh.**

**A blood mage is able to use his body as a canvas and, with his knowledge of ancient writings, he can fill that canvas with beautiful phrases of old, marks that will change him to his core.**

**Runes and Elder script were ever only a weaker, less evolved form of the blood arts. Mgical writing can only reach its true potential when applied directly to one's body and using one's innate magic. This book will teach you how tor each your true potential, how to change your weak and lesser Runes into what they were meant to be in the first place. You will learn the art of magical writing as it was first envisionned, as our ancestors created it and as many, these past few years, have tried to denounce, scared by the potential of such a pure and natural art.**

  
  


His eyes skimming over the next few pages, Percy frowns. He has heard of blood magic before, has heard whispers of it being used by some Death Eaters during the war, can vaguely remembering coming accross it while he studied for his NEWTs but he's starting to realise that he never really knew anything about it in the first place. The way it was described to him, blood rituals were a form of magical corruption that turned those cursed and mad enough to resort to it into mindless monster, controlled by their own magic, unable to think for themselves. Never would he have thought that it could be something so mundane as a form of magical writing, he doesn't know if he even believes it now.

But then, he thinks as he skips to the last few pages of the book, it does make sense. While wizards are only able to use their magical core to perform spells and enchantments, they are magical beings and, therefore, every part of their body is imbued with magic. This is why so many rituals and potions use hair, fingernails or even full limbs to become completely efficient. The body has a form of innate magic that can not be accessed consciously but that, when activated by an external force, can be extremely efficient and powerful.

According to the book, blood magic is used as a link between this very innate magic and the usual effects of Runes and magical writing. The effect of the Runes are engraved into a wizard's body itself, making it permanent and that much more powerful. While a few Runes written in chalk on your arm might grant you temporary protection from fire, the exact same runes (with a few additions to transition into blood magic) tattooed on your body with your own blood will make that protection last for the rest of your life, without any drain on your magical core.

Body modifications are dangerous and tend to go awry very easily, Percy knows that much. The magic in a wizard's core is _meant_ to be used but the one in a wizard's body is never supposed to be channeled for anything other than fueling said body. Touching it would be _wrong_ , it would be something completely against what nature intended. Even as he's thinking about it he can't help but shiver, wondering how bad it would feel if his body's magic was used in such a way. He isn't very squimish when it comes to dubious magical experiments but, this time, he finds that he has found his limits. He can modify his core as he pleases but changing his body, changing who he is? This would be wrong. This would be like adding an extra finger to one of his hand, or cutting off an arm.

  
  


The concept of blood magic is sickening to him but he knows, deep in his mind, that this is _exactly_ the kind of rituals the Dark Lord would use to ensure his survival. He has known for a long time that the man has no morals, no limits when it comes to how much evil he can unleash on the world. Blood rituals would be right up his alley, would probably not even phase him.

He'll have to study them, he thinks, he'll have to learn everything he can about them and find out how to destroy them from the outside. It won't be easy, and he might have to resort to using Isha as a source of informations, which he would have liked to wait a bit before doing, but, if this is indeed the solution to his problems, he can't allow himself to ignore it.

  
  


Percy spends the next few hours reading grimly about the various applications of blood magic throughout the ages and how it has been used during many experiments, most of the times on unwilling subjects. It makes his skin crawl but he doesn't stop. The cold air around him helps a bit, it helps him focus, it grounds him into his body and stops him from panicking, from remembering the war, the whispers and the labs uncovered under London. He forgets the smell of rotten flesh and the sight of distorted, destroyed bodies and thinks about the Dark Lord falling to his death and coming back, again and again. He thinks of Fred and of George, of Ron and his empty funerals, of Ginny, of Harry.

These two are the ones that will kill the Dark Lord, he just needs to make sure that he'll stay dead once they do it.

  
  


**oOo**

  
  


"Hey!"

Percy closes his eyes briefly, tries to pretend like he heard nothing and go on with his night. Unfortunately, turning a blind eyes to his issues doesn't make them disappear and, soon, he feels the weight of an arm hooking around his shoulders and a cheery voice tells him :

"I haven't seen you in like-- a month! Where have you been?"

Frowning, he sends a disaproving glare to the boy next to him, who doesn't look all that disturbed by it. Oliver, even when they were roommates and close friends, has never been very receptive to his various attempts to intimidate him. Having to face off with Flint every two weeks or so to get to use the Quidditch pitch was probably a big part of that aspect of his character.

Or maybe not, because Oliver is eleven right now and he's still as unimpressed by Percy's glare as he has ever been.

"Sleeping." Percy ends up sighing, which owes him a disbelieving look from the other boy.

"No way! You don't look like it!"

"Thanks..." He mutters.

"No offense, mate, but you look terrible. Well perhaps a bit less lately, but still. You don't look all that good."

Instead of running away from him like he wants to, Percy stands his ground and crosses his arm, displeased.

"Hush down, will you," he orders quietly, "I don't want a Prefect to find us."

Oliver shrugs but obediently quiets down. In the darkness, Percy can't see his face but he can still smell the mud and grime that must be all over his clothes, as well as hear that his breathing is a bit too fast for a kid that just got out of bed. He's been flying at night again, which is one of the most reckless things he could have done in the school. He didn't even ask for anyone to come with him, what's going to happen if he ever falls down and breaks something? Especially now that barely anyone ever leaves the school due to the cold.

He's not the best at taking care of himself but, at least, he doesn't endanger his life by flying like a madman on his own in the dead of night. He's better than that.

  
  


"You don't look that happy." Oliver drawls.

They resume walking, together this time, and Percy bristles.

"I'm not," he tells the gryffindor, "you shouldn't be doing that."

"Hey, you're out of bed too!"

"I'm-- what if you fall?"

Once more, Oliver shrugs.

"I won't, I'm pretty good at flying." He says. " 'sides, I know how to call for help."

"Do you really?"

"Yes, I'll just have to scream really loudly."

Percy stops in his stride to glare at the other boy, which proves, once again, to be completely inefficient.

"You won't laugh when you're in detention," he mutters, doing his best to reign his old Prefect instincts in. Everytime he sees a student up past curfew, he wants to take points away from them and send them to Minerva's office but, now, he has no legitimity to do that.

"Neither will you, Weasley." A cold voice that is most definitely _not_ Oliver's answers him.

Next to him, Oliver screams and Percy, startled, whirls around and takes out his wand. Weeks of meditation and self-reflection allows him not to immediately blurt out a curse and it proves to be a good thing since, in front of him, staring down at his wand, he recognises the silhouette of someone he has been trying to avoid for much of his school year.

Snape.

The potions teacher sneers down at the two of them and, slowly, pushes Percy's wand out the way with the back of his hand. Even if his face is shrouded by shadows, it's easy to see how annoyed he is and, right now, Percy knows that he's in a lot of trouble.

"Weasley. Wood. What a surprise." Snape ironises. "Can't I go one day without having to run into the two of you?"

He doesn't leave them any time to respond and, instead, tells them sharply to follow him. Sheepish, Oliver obeys immediately but it's only after the teacher turns around and barks at Percy to stop being foolish that he snaps out of his surprise-filled frenzy. He hates being startled, it makes him lose all control over his reflexes, it makes him _dangerous_.

In silence, they follow Snape down the dungeons and into his office and stand in front of his desk as he sits down behind it, glaring at them all the while. The man's dark eyes go over Oliver's messy hair and the spots of dirt and mud on his clothes and his mouth turns even more downwards, in a very obvious frown.

"Wood. What were you doing out of your Common Room?"

His calm tone implies that he already figured out the answer to his question but it still makes Oliver shuffle around uncomfortably. After a few seconds of hesitation, the boy explains that he snuck out to practice flying, which causes Snape to inhale sharply, obviously disapproving.

"Did you know about this, Weasley?"

Percy shakes his head, not trusting himself to speak yet. Snape's eyes dig into his own for a moment before the man turns away, the motion familiar enough that it makes _something_ stir inside of Percy, something he can't quite put a finger on yet.

"Very well. Wood. Professor Kettleburn has been needing some help to clean out the Thestral stables. You'll be helping him every day until the winter holidays. Is that understood?"

"Yes sir!" Oliver nods, his face as red as Percy's hair.

"Go back to your room this instant." Snape sighs, waving his hand in front of him.

Both he and Percy watch as the gryffindor boy hurries out of the room, almost tripping over his own feet in his haste. Once the door closes behind him, they turn to look a each other, the time traveler feeling like an idiot for letting the man sneaking up on him. If only Oliver hadn't been there...

"Weasley, I didn't expect much of you but--"

Snape closes his eyes, taking a deep breath, aggravated. When he opens them again, his glare is piercing enough to make Percy feel queasy and that's when he finally realises what is happening, why the man's way of looking at him is so familiar.

Oh Merlin.

Severus Snape is a Legilimen.

By reflex, every single one of Percy's mental shields slid into place, shutting down around his mind with an imaginary thud, drawing slightly on his core as they do so. This kind of protection is only taught to soldiers and Aurors, it's quick to learn and very efficient and, if Snape really is a Legilimen, he should recognise it immediately and understand that there's no way a child like him has learned how to use them. He almost curses himself for this mistake but, then, it's better than his teacher finding out the truth about it by reading his mind, he can explain having mental shield, he can't explain most of his memories, especially not to a Death Eater.

However, the surprise he's expecting doesn't appear on the head of slytherin's face, instead, a slow mask of annoyance settles over his features. With a profoundly disgusted look on his face, the man continues :

"—I at least thought you would have _tried_ to follow my advices by now."

Taken aback, Percy doesn't reply, staring at the man in disbelief as he adds :

"If I give you a book on Occlumency, I expect you to follow it. Your mind is all over the place. If you don't sort it out by the end of the year, I _will_ be contacting your Healer. You obviously can't be trusted to look after yourself."

_What?_

His mind is shut tightly behind thick magical shields and, even so, his thoughts behind those shields aren't in any way chaotic. He does feel a bit annoyed, angry even, but, from Snape's tone, it's as if the man was sensing some kind of disproportionate rage coming from him, a rage that just _isn't there_.

"Sir, I'm--"

"Don't bother, Weasley. You'll be having detention with me every Friday, from 6 to 8. If you don't want to make an effort, I shall force you to do so."

"But—"

"There is no 'but'. You chose to be lazy, and I don't tolerate laziness in my House, we are not gryffindors."

  
  


As he sits down on his bed and takes off his green and silver tie, Percy wonders why the potions teacher, who appears to be an accomplished Legilimen, if he can read mind without using a spell, can't seem to see what is going on in his own mind. He remembers putting some form of protection on himself stopping him from divulging the truth of his origins before going into the rift, at least not before the Dark Lord's death, but he has no idea of how this could have translated into an unconscious shield around his brain.

Maybe this is one of Luna's ideas? This looks like something she would do, even if he's a bit surprised by the fact that she didn't tell him about it.

So. He has another, fake flow of consciousness surrounding his real one, and a very emotionnally unstable one at that. It's useful, in that no one will be able to read his thoughts easily, but it also means that anyone who tries to take a look at them will think that he's a lunatic. At least it explains why Snape seems to think he's some sort of time bomb about to murder all of his schoolmates.

He closes his eyes and, just as he's about to drift into sleep, a strange feeling takes hold of his heart. It's something odd, between grief, disgust and pure, intense hatred. He wants to focus on it but he's already half-asleep and it's not long before it slips away.

This night, he has a nightmare about Ron's funerals.

When he wakes up, his body is covered in bruises.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of stuff is introduced in this chapter. Also I drafted out this fic and it's gonna be 25 chapters long, with a sequel (more like 4 sequels lmao).
> 
> I DIDN'T PROOFREAD THIS AND WILL COME BACK TO IT TOMORROW.


	7. Christmas at the Weasleys I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy talks to a guy and spends quality (?) time with his family.

_**Perce,** _

_**Darling, your father and I are so glad that you're having fun with your brothers, Bill told us all about your little adventure in the Lake! I hope it wasn't too cold, I remember it being absolutely freezing around November, back when I was in school.** _

_**I've sent you a few treats to share with your friends. I know I can trust you not to eat them all at once, not like your brothers... Anyways, I've tried my hand at some new cakes, you'll have to write me what you think of them!** _

_**We think about you a lot and miss you very much.** _

_**With Love,** _

_**Mum** _

_**Ps : Ginny wanted to write a few words for you.** _

_**Ginny : HeLO perCy i mis yOu and charLi and biLL aLsO rOn dOnt Let me use the brOOm and that nOt fair.i lOve yOu** _

_**PPs : Don't forget to pack your stuff for Christmas!** _

 

Munching on a plain toast, Percy frowns at the piece of paper in his hand. Taken in by his research and work, he had completely forgotten about the Christmas holidays, which are getting closer each and every day. Unlike Ron, who had enjoyed almost every one of his winters away from the Burrow, he used to go there every year, back in his first life. Or before his fight with his family at least.

It's not the first time he's spent a Christmas at his house since he came back but it still feels a bit strange, to partake in such a tradition. Luna, of course, had been very fond of the event, even during the war, so they had always done _something_ to celebrate it but he had forgotten just how important it actually is, in a time of peace.

He doesn't feel as good about it as he did during his first year back, however. He's been having real breakthroughs in his investigation so far as dark rituals are concerned, and he would have liked to have a bit more time to finish his research on blood-healing ceremonies. Blood magic is a field he never explored when he was an adult and it offers a lot of promise when it comes to finding the source of the Dark Lord's immortality. Of course, it's an extremely obscure form of magic, so there are only three books on the subject in the school Reserve, all of them purely theorical, with no proper explanation, but he intends to use his growing influence on Isha to get her to lend him one, at least for a few days. Knowing her, she would be delighted to learn that he is interested in this sort of magic, especially with the kind of power such an information gives her over him.

Then, there's still a full week before the holidays begin so, maybe, if he asks her now, he could...

No. This is a bad idea. Bringing a book on blood magic in his childhood home is most definitely asking for trouble. There is no way he could get away with it if his parents saw him reading from it.

 

Disappointed, he frowns down at his half-empty plate of eggs. He's not feeling very hungry all of a second, maybe he should just go back to his dormitory and work on his notes and what he has managed to find out about blood rituals.

He's just starting to get up when someone taps his shoulder, making him grit his teeth in a way he hopes is not too noticeable. He's been getting better at  avoiding to jump in the air whenever someone unexpectedly approaches him but, despite his progresses, he's not fully there yet.

When he turns his head, he's greeted by the sight of one of his fellow slytherins, a half-blood boy named Connor. He's not part of Isha's entourage, preferring to hang out with the other half-blood of their year, Gwenaël, and a muggleborn girl, Abigail. The three of them form one of the two main friends groups in the first year of Slytherin and, until now, none of them have really tried to approach Percy. A bit surprised that the boy would try to get in contact with him now, he stares at him, tilting his head on the side in confusion.

"Hey Percy." Connor says, looking a bit awkward himself. "Can we-- can we talk?"

Still confused, Percy nods, following the boy out of the Great Hall and into a nearby classroom, thankfully empty. He recognises it as one of the study rooms the NEWT students use to rehearse the oral portion of their exams, which explains why it's unoccupied. Silently, he follows Connor's lead and sits down on one of the tables, crossing his arms in front of him.

"So..." the kid begins. "You're helping Isha."

There's something like reproach in his tone and, suddenly, Percy realises that Connor does not hold the Slytherin girl in his heart. There's something a lot like a burgeoning rivalry between the two of them and he has somehow managed to land smack in the middle of it, despite his best attempts to stay neutral.

"She's paying me." He explains, choosing to stay honest. With mild curiosity, he watches as Connor's face lights up in understanding, the boy frowning thoughtfully.

"How much?" He eventually asks.

Percy tells him and the child recoils, eyebrows rising and mouth opening slightly. Unlike Isha, who's a talented eleven years old, he's quite bad at hiding his emotions. It takes him a few seconds to recover, obviously taken aback.

"I can't pay you that much." He eventually says, still a bit stunned.

"You want me to do your homework too?" Percy wonders, a bit surprised. Isha getting him to do her job for her is more a power move than a real necessity. She could do it, if she really wanted to, but she obviously enjoys the fact that she can afford not to work, plus she's building a subordinate/superior relationship between the two of them, the kind pureblood leaders use and abuse once they reach adulthood.

Connor, however, didn't hit him as someone who might want help cheating on his homework.

 

"No, no. Well. Not quite."

 

Percy waits for him to explain himself, curious.

"See," Connor tells him, "I want you to explain stuff to me. I'm not the best at Potions and you always finish before us and get the best grades. But I can't pay you that much."

Percy thinks about it. Obviously, he can't give the boy what he wants for free, or this would equate to taking a side in the internal power struggle between him and Isha, something he wants to avoid at all cost. So, he has to find a way to get him to pay him somehow but, considering that there's nothing Connor can give him, it's going to be hard to find a credible one.

Or, maybe, he can ask him for a favour.

Favours are dangerous things to give in the wizarding world, as it's very easy to bind them magically. Most adults only give them in very specific circumstances and in a controlled environment but Connor is a child, and a half-blood at that. It's very likely that he'll not realise the implications of such a promise until it's too late, when Isha'll recognise it for what it is as soon as she hears about it. One day, it might even prove to be useful, if Percy ever needs his help.

Yes, this is a good idea.

"I want a favour." He says. "I'll help you out with whatever you want in Potions this year but you'll owe me."

"What? Really?"

Connor's face indicates clearly that he thinks the offer is too good to be true but Percy only shrugs, adding :

"You'll have to use magic to promise me you'll fulfil it."

"Alright. Alright sure."

The kid takes out his wand and, after another disbelieving glance, as if he was waiting for him to tell him he has changed his mind, he mutters :

"I promise I'll owe you a favour in exchange for your help in Potions."

As soon as he's finished speaking, a bright light surges out the tip of his wand and hits him in the chest before flying in Percy's direction. For a second, the both of them are connected by a thin, magic line that is quick to disappear. There. The contract is formed. Obviously, his fellow slytherin wasn't expecting this to happen as he recieves a quite confused look from him but, before he can get dragged into an unecessary conversation, Percy straightens up.

"I'll meet you next Friday after class in the Potions labs," he tells Connor, jumping down from the table he was sitting on.

He hears the kid call after him as he leaves the room but he ignores him, walking as fast as he can towards the dungeons. On the way here, he passes by Bill, who smiles at him and offers him any help he needs in packing his belongings. He politely declines, not wanting his brother to stumble upon any of his extra-curricular work, and leaves him and his friends behind. He remembers several of them, all gryffindors, as members of the resistance.

The dormitory is, unusurprisingly, empty when he enters it. An eleven year old boy would much rather play outside the castle and explore the ground than spend his late-afternoon reading and studying, after all. It's something he misses a bit, having this much freedom, but then he knows that, were he to have so little to do as these boys, he would go mad with boredom. This is, after all, exactly what happened in the last year, before he entered Hogwarts.

 

Taking great care in closing the curtains around him, he takes out  **An Introduction to Blood Magic and Blood Rituals**  from under his mattress. Out of the three he managed to find on the subject of blood magic, this one is the most detailed, going into the practice of several rituals and the effects of them on some wizards. He has already read it, of course, but he needs to go over several chapters, to double-check if the informations are reliable and, if so, at what point they can be of use to him. There is a particularly fascinating excerpt about a life-prolonging ceremony that looks to be right up the Dark Lord's alley but then, there is little to no proof in the book as of it's effectivity, and blood magic is obscure enough that there's no way Percy can verify the information easily.

Thankfully, blood magic relies heavily on Ancient Runes, engraved in the target's body, to work, which means that he can at least check the efficiency of the runes described in the book. So far, it seems that most of them are, in fact, a quite clever use of healing runes and glyphs which, put together, form a semi-coherent picture of prolonged life. According to the theories Percy has read, blood magic is then used to transfer the power of the runes, impossible to be cast on flesh in their usual state, into the target's body, binding magic and blood together to change them to their core. Literally.

This is all very fascinating and completely forbidden. Ever since the 1920s and the bodymorphing craze, extreme and permanent body modifications have been outlawed in the UK, and in most of Europe, which had, at the time, caused a dangerous doubt on the legacity of healing spells. Blood magic, obviously, falls under that category and it has been years since blood rituals have last been used in the limits of the law. The Dark Lord, however, has never been one for following the Ministry's legislation, unfortunately for most of the Wizarding world, and a good chunk of the muggle one.

The ritual described on paper appears, at first, to be quite safe but, when Percy goes deeper into the translation and application of the runes used in it, it becomes more and more apparent that it is in fact quite unstable and dangerous. The author prioritised the power behind the runes above their coherrency, which means that they are bound very loosely together. If such a ritual was to be attempted, there would be a good chance that the target would not survive, the runes being too unstable to stay together for long. At best, they could live for one or two years before the strain of it became too much and they eventually were torn apart.

Once again, literally.

It's a bit odd, realising that Luna and him once used methods similar to this sort of rituals. Of course, the ones they used focused solely on their magic and soul, to allow them to survive the trip inside the rift of time, but it was, in restrospect, just as obscure and dangerous as to what he's researching. At the time, it seemed only natural, though.

 

The Dark Lord would not risk his life by attempting such a dangerous ritual but there is still a high possibility that he used something similar to prolong his life expectancy and give himself a form of immortality. Distractedly, Percy wonders if he can replicate such a ritual, to try and find out its weaknesses and how he could go past it. If he spent several months on it, he could probably come up with something better than the book's author's ritual, but there's still a high risk of it just being a huge waste of time. Then there is also the obvious fact that he'd never use blood magic himself, so he'd have to translate it in proper runic language somehow.

 

After this evening, he doesn't make much more progress in his dark magic studies, focusing instead on his research into the Dark Lord's past. This front is much less interesting and much more frustating so, after one more afternoon wasted in the Library, bending over large tomes full of students' names and grades, he decides to be done with it for the week and come back there later, after holidays. Hopefully, a clearer head will help him find something new.

The rest of his week is spent dodging the other slytherins, meeting up with his brother and, surprisingly, a rather nice hour spent tutoring Connor in Potions. The other boy is polite and very determined. It's clear that he has a bright future, despite his unfortunate lack of deeper understanding of politics. If he could afford to take a side in this conflict, Percy would without a doubt support him over Isha but this is not his battle, and there is a much more important war waiting to be fought. He can't be distracted with things like this. He's not a child.

 

"If you want," Connor tells him, at the end of their lesson, "you can sit with us at dinner tonight."

"I'd rather not," he answers. "But thank you for offering."

And the boy doesn't understand his refusal, frowning at him, obviously quite huty, but it's fine. Percy didn't come here to make friends with eleven years old, he came here to find a way to save his family, and this is what he's going to do.

Nothing else matters.

**oOo**

 

Bill, Charlie and him are greeted by the entirety of their family, when they step outside the Hogwarts Express. Both their parents look delighted to see them and their siblings, Ron in front, run to come see them. Ginny jumps into Bill's arm, squealing happily and babbling about how she's _definitely_ going to get a toy broom this Christmas, and Fred and George grab Percy's bag from his hands and drag it back to where the adults are waiting, completely ignoring his complaining.

All three of them are hugged by their mother and patted on the head by their father and, soon enough, they're out of the train station and stuffing their bags into a Ford Anglia that Percy doesn't remember his dad having when he left for school. He does, however, remember it being crashed by Ron sometimes during his sixth year. The whole situation had been extremely embarrassing.

 

On their way home, they are assaulted with a barrage of question from their siblings, Ron being the one to talk the loudest and fastest, he monopolises most of the conversation by asking about Charlie's games and how it feels to be a proper Quidditch player. His older brother humours him, a big smile on his lips, obviously enjoying the feeling of being with his family.

The twins, however, don't enjoy not being heard that much and, after glaring at their little brother for a good dozen minutes, they eventually take action, George tackling the boy and Fred forcefully putting a jacket over his head. Ron, predictably, starts yelling and kicking, calling them all sorts of names. From the driver's seat, Dad sighs loudly.

"Boys, leave your brother alone." Mum orders, turning her head to glare at them.

"Ronnikin doesn't want to share." George says, grabbing Ron's legs to stop him from kicking them.

"It's our turn to speak now." Fred adds, yelping when the seven year old manages to get his head out from under the jacket and bites his arm viciously.

After that point, the situation devolves into utter chaos ; their mum attemps to separate the boys but their constant moving and fighting make this a difficult task. At some point, a rogue Levitation spell, intended to pull Fred away from Ron, hits Ginny and she begins to float, giggling as she hits the roof of the car. Someone yells at the twins to calm down. Discreetly, Charlie facepalms, hiding behind his school robes.

It's bright and loud, everyone is trying to speak over everyone else and it should make Percy feel afraid, it should make him on edge, uneasy.

But it doesn't.

Because it might be bright, it might be loud and those are things he learnt to fear over the years, but it's also familiar and warm. It's his family.

He's coming home and he didn't realise how much he had missed it.

 

**oOo**

 

On Christmas Eve, Percy helps his Mum put together some crackers, watching carefully her hand movements and reproducing them as best as he can. Despite being quite good at charms, she always liked to use her hands in some occasions, one of them being planning for Christmas. Together, along with Charlie, who humours them when they ask him to join in on the crafting, they manage to make and decorate nine crackers, one for each family members. When comes the time to stuff them with a gift, however, Mum shooes them away, hiding the presents behind her back.

Dad is quick to assign them a task, when they join him in the living room, and, while Charlie is made to release some magic balloons into the air, to light up the room, Percy is put in front of the tree, which both Ron and Ginny have started to decorate. With a hint of surprise, he notices that the tinsels, usually variants of bright red and gold, have been joined by a tamer green, the exact same shade as the one he wears on his school robes. He always knew his parents were supportive of his sorting, they had made that clear in the letters they sent him, but this is a nice touch.

He silently accepts the enchanted candles Ron hands him and climbs on the back of the couch to get better access to the top of the tree. This prompts Bill to chide him, telling him to be more careful, which he ignores.

"Percy!" Ginny tells him, arms crossed, "I want to put the star on the tree!"

He's about to get down and help her on the couch when Dad rises from the couch he's been sitting on, working on the last of his administrative papers, and joins them.

"Pumpkin," he laughs, "leave your brother alone, I'll help you."

He points her wand at her and, with an amused 'Wingardium Leviosa', he levitates her to the top of the tree. Ginny, of course, is absolutely delighted by this development and she quickly forgets all about putting the star on top of the tree, spinning in the air like a lunatic, looking the happiest she has been this entire day.

Of course, the noise alerts Mum, who steps out of the kitchen and, upon seeing what is going on, doesn't waste a second to reprimand both her husband and her daughter.

"I can't believe it Arthur!" she sighs as she pulls Ginny away from the tree, ignoring her pleas to be levitated again. "She's going to be impossible to calm down now."

"Come on honey," Dad smiles. "It's Christmas."

"Not yet!"

Percy watches as she lifts his sister up in her arm and carries her to the kitchen. Distracted, he doesn't notice when Bill slides up behind him and doesn't react in time to stop him when he grabs him under the arms and hoists him up in the air. He's pulled away from the back of the couch, on which he had been standing, and crushed against his brother's torso, held in place by his much stronger arm. With a surprised cry, he tries to shake him off, wiggling around.

"Bill!" He complains, a bit surprised that his older brother would do something like this, "Put me down!"

"Don't!" Fred orders, looking delighted from the other side of the room. "Don't put him down!"

"Bill!"

The Prefect, who's laughing by now, as are a good half of their siblings, doesn't comply and, still holding him with one arm (and how pathetic is that that Percy can't even free himself from that?) and ruffles his hair with the other. He tries to push him away once more, trying to kick him in the knees, to force him to drop him.

It doesn't work.

"Bill!" He yells again, louder. The dark thing at the back of his mind that has stayed sleeping since the beginning of the holidays, since he left Hogwarts and stepped into the Burrow, stirs. The feeling of being held against his will, of not being able to move like he wants to is so similar to an Incarcerous that, by reflex, he slips his arms down, hand reaching for the front pocket of his pants, for the wand he keeps in there.

Then, Bill takes two steps towards one of the couches, the red one, and tips forward, crushing him under his weight. He's still laughing and the vibrations of his ribcage against Percy's back make the _thing_ in his mind absolutely furious.

His wand is in his hand.

He remembers being pinned to the ground by a werewolf, not transformed but still half-feral, its mouth covered in blood, its nails so long they were almost claws in themselves. He remembers struggling to breathe, to think, his ribs cracking, his lungs unable to expand. He remembers a spell, cast desperately when he thought he couldn't handle it anymore.

He flicks his wand backwards and, at the same time, screams :

"Depulso!"

There's a bright light, a thud and, suddenly, he can breathe properly.

Head spinning, he gets up on his knees, wand still raised in front of him, ready to defend himself. Someone, close to him, barely a meter away, is talking, calm and low. They try to take a step forward and, as they do so, Percy can see the wand between their finger.

He doesn't even have to think before the spell is out of his mouth, the red beam familiar and comforting as it hits the agressor's wand and propels it away from them. He easily grabs it from the air, years of experience helping him find the perfect timing, and he shoves it into his pocket, just in case.

After that, everyone in the room stills. In the silence, only the laboured breathing of the teen he has thrown away from him can be heard. The man, the one he has disarmed, raises his hand in front of him, as if to prove that he is, indeed, weaponless. Slowly, he attempts to take a step.

"Don't try it." Percy tells him, cold and merciless. There's no way he'll let anyone approach him right now.

"Percy." The man says, his voice shaking slightly. "Perce. Calm down, calm down, it's me."

 What does he mean by that? Does he really think that he'd lower his defences, risk his life just because a stranger told him--

Wait.

It's not a stranger.

It's him.

It's him.

It's ...

Dad.

It's Dad.

Oh.

Oh no.

With a dawning horror, he remembers where and, more importantly, _when_ he is. This is his family, he's Percy Weasley, eleven, a first year Hogwarts student. He's in the Burrow and he has just sent his older brother flying and disarmed his father. This is...

This is something he thought he was past.

For months, he has been treated as something fragile, a boy made out of glass and, bitterly, he realises that, as annoying as it had been, it was without a doubt the right thing to do. He can't handle being manhandled in that way, can't handle the playful shoving and play-fighting that happens in every family. He believed he could, believed he had recovered enough to be treated as a normal person but he can't.

_He can't_.

 

"Percy," Dad says again, "give me your wand."

He looks down at the wand in his right hand, still pointed towards the older man's chest and he wants to cry. What's wrong with him? He used to be so calm, so collected, how did this come to this, how did this...

His Dad is in front of him, he hasn't seen him move. He feels like a spectator in his own body right now, and not a very attentive one at that. Motionless, he watches as his wand is slowly, carefully, taken away from his grasp. In the silence, his breathing sounds loud, too loud.

"Alright, good. Everything's alright Perce, it's fine. I''m fine. Calm down."

On the other side of the room, Bill is standing up, supported by Charlie. He doesn't look to be too severely injured but then Percy knows how it feels to be hit with a Depulso. It _hurts_ , and so does the fact that he's so completely out of control that he has attacked one of his family member.

He's ashamed.

How is he supposed to keep them away from danger when he's one of those dangers himself?

He closes his eyes and wishes the world would disappear around him, wishes Luna was here, with him.

 

Someone grabs his hands and the fact that it scares him a bit makes him want to scream.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this something like three weeks ago and the writing was aw-ful. I've done my best to fix it but it's still not very good.


	8. Ghosts on the ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy gets a new hobby. Bit more light-hearted than other chapters.

"I'm disappointed.

Percy lowers his gaze, his hands shaking slightly, despite the fact that he's pressing them as hard as he can against his thighs. In front of him, Snape is pacing back and forth, hands joined behind his back and feet hitting the floor with soft little thuds. The rythm of it is the only thing that currently grounds him and he has some trouble tearing himself away from listening to it in order to look at his teacher, who isn't even bothering to glare at him.

"I'm disappointed, Weasley." Snape tells him again, face tight. "We've been working together for weeks but you are still utterly unable to produce the slightest form of self-discipline."

It's been a week since he's come back to Hogwarts, leaving his family behind in the Burrow, and he's still unsettled by what happened there. He doesn't know what he's going to do when school starts up again, when he sees his brothers once more, when he sees _Bill_.

He closes his eyes and, behind his eyelids, he can see a flash of blue and the sound of a body hitting a wall. He did this.

"Weasley!" His head of House snaps, noticing his distracted state.

Percy's eyes drag on the man's body, tense and angry, and find themselves turned towards his face. He's using Legilimency, he knows it by the intensity of his glare, but what he's seeing is not the truth, even if it's probably very close. Right now, Percy feels more tense and lost than he ever has and, if he had it in him to focus long enough on his mind to meditate, he could probably fix it... but he _doesn't want to_. He doesn't deserve to be calm, doesn't deserve to feel good. He hurt Bill. He used a dangerous, violent spell on Bill, inside his home, in front of his siblings.

He doesn't deserve to be at ease.

He deserves the pain.

 

With a sigh, Snape turns on his heels, apparently giving up on him. Percy watches as he gets out of the classroom and into his office without another word, leaving him behind. He waits for a few minutes to see if the man is going to come back but, when he doesn't, he slowly stands up from his seat and makes his way out of the room. The corridors are cold and empty when he enters them and it shouldn't feel as good as it does that he's currently alone but he can't help but be relieved. He should be alone, it's safer.

His feet carry him outside the castle, down the rocks and the grass that leads to the lake and then under the willow he found a month ago, back when he was starting to make progress with his Occlumency. His mental shields are all but obliterated by now but he doesn't care enough to fix them.

Bonelessly, he slides down against the bark of the large willow tree and rests his head against it. It snowed today and the air is cold enough for his breath to turn into white puffs as it leaves his mouth. He remembers days spent huddling under a tent, trying to fight off sleepiness and ignore the snow against the fabric and, for a mad, senseless second, he yearns for this, for the familiarity of the war, of the pain. Back then, he didn't have to worry about who he hurt, everyone could protect themselves and he was far from the strongest fighter they had.

Now, Bill can't even dodge an obvious assault. It's his own fault, of course, he's the one who attacked him but _still_ , it's hard to forget that he's the only one in the entire world who had to go through the war.

Were he brave enough to confront his family, he would have spent the rest of his holidays at the Burrow and visited his and Luna's hill, the one between his house and the nearby woods, to talk to her and try to make some sense out of this mess; but he isn't brave, he never really was. The only thing he has on him is a book about blood magic and, if he can't talk to his best friend, then at least he can try to do something useful and find out more about the Dark Lord's methods.

He has read this book many times during the past month, and every time he has managed to understand a bit more about the intricacies of blood magic. It's so much like Ancient Runes that he's always _almost_ fascinated by it but the taboo of it all is enough to remind him that this is not something he wants to be dragged in. This is extremely dark magic and he isn't a dark wizard, he's Percy and he might be violent, he might be stupid but he's still fighting for the light, he's still fighting for his family.

But still, he thinks, looking over a few of the schematics scattered throurough the book, the manuscript was meant for students, not researchers, and there's still so much it doesn't say about blood rituals. He has the basis of it but he still can't understand how body modifications really work. He can see himself applying Runes on his body but he can't see how he would do it and he can't see what kind would work. In the book, the author uses very simple runes, like one for protection, that, used with blood magic, would allow the user to be impervious to extremely small physical offenses, like someone throwing a rock at them. It's virtually useless for what he wants to do and it's just not powerful enough, not advanced enough. He _needs_ to know more about blood magic. He's almost certain that this is the kind of magic the Dark Lord used and the man surely went beyond the level that was taught to XIXth century Hogwarts students.

To understand blood magic, he'd need to get a new book but he has no idea where to look for it. The only other option he has is to...

 

He thinks about it, thinks about drawing blood from a living being and carving symbols in its flesh, cursing it with a deformity it'll never be able to get rid of and it makes him gag. He can't do that. He has already compromised much of his morals to get to where he is but he just can't do that. He's a light wizard, he's not a Death Eater.

He needs to get a new book.

 

With slow, careful breaths, he calms hismind. This is fine. He might have messed everything up with his family by attacking Bill but he's still in control of his research. He's making progress, he found what kind of magic the Dark Lord used and he's getting better at grasping the principle of it. Sure, Isha will probably never forget that he asked her for a book on _blood magic_ of all things but he can still use her and he's pretty sure that she'll accept, if only to have some blackmail on him.

Her and Connor are still deep in their rivalry, after all, she needs all the help from him she can get.

 

He stays outside for a while longer, staring at the few teens that dared sneak out to go ice skating on the frozen lake. It's very unsafe, thanks to the thin ice, but the giant squid has a deal with the Headmaster to retrieve the kids stupid enough to fall down in the water. Percy had to go scold a few idiots when he was a Prefect and he had been put on ice skating watch. Ginny had been very fond of the activity, he remembers, and very good at it too.

Suddenly, a vision of his sister, twelve and happy, flashes in front of his eyes. She's ice skating, clad in the winter robes that mum repaired for her, her bright red hair floating behind her as she slides faster and faster on the ice. She laughed, then, and it was the first time he had seen her truly happy since the terrible events of the previous year.

He didn't stop her, didn't even tell her he had caught her. He just walked away, silently, pretending like he didn't see Fred and George joining her on the ice, pretending like he didn't want to go have fun with them, too.

 

Percy looks down at his shoes. They're somewhat new, his mum having put more care in his belongings than she had in his first life, and the light brown leather they're made off is warm enough for his feet not to freeze completely. He looks back at the ice and at the ghost of Ginny laughing there. The other students have left by now, probably afraid to fall down or to be caught by a teacher.

He closes his book and takes out his wand. Before he has time to question his decision, he flicks it downwards and conjures silvery, metallic skates under his shoes. The spell, a complex and wordless one, leaves him completely drained and he has trouble regaining his breath once it is done but still, he succeeds.

 

Once he feels a bit better, he shuffles over to the edge of the lake and, carefully, steps on it. His book is back in his bag, which is safely slung across his shoulder. He almost falls down on his first few steps but, once he figures out he's not supposed to mimic walking but try to glide on the ice, he starts to do a bit better.

He has never ice skated before, no matter how many times his brothers tried to convince him to break the rules and join them.

 

Percy kicks away from the willow and the edge of the lake. Ice skating must be something his family is naturally good at because it's quite easy to find his footing, now. He swirls around and thinks about Ginny, doing the exact same thing, years ago, years into the future. He wonders if Bill and Charlie did this too, still do this. What about Ron and Harry? Did the tyrant enjoy such things in his childhood? It's hard to separate the image of the green eyed monster and the one of the small first year boy in his head but, for a few minutes, he can imagine a dark haired kid skating next to his brother, in the midst of winter.

He stops in the center of the large ice field and looks up at the castle, lit up against the quickly darkening sky. It's the end of the afternoon and, in January, it means that night is starting to fall. He's not eager to go back to his empty dormitory and to the too familiar corridors of the school and, in that instant, he wants nothing more than to be here forever, with the memories of his siblings, far away from everything that hurt him, from his mistakes.

 

There's a woosh of air behind him and he turns his head slightly, hoping that he's not about to be yelled at by a vigilant Prefect. However, when he turns around, it's not the face of a fifth year student he sees but the one of the only persons he, reluctanctly, considers as a friend in this timeline.

"You're here!" Oliver tells him, eyes wide.

Percy wisely doesn't comment on the fact that the boy is riding a broomstick despite the very explicit interdiction for first years to own one of them, and stares up at him, wondering what he's doing here. He vaguely remembers his former roommate not coming home for the holidays during their first years in Hogwarts but the memory is so old that it takes him looking directly at Oliver's face for it to come back to him.

"Yes." He says, because he has nothing else to tell the boy. To his surprise, the gryffindor's eyes light up.

"That's so cool! I thought you went home with your brothers!"

Percy turns his eyes away, not wanting to think about the reasons behind his presence at Hogwarts. It was easy enough to ignore them when he was remembering his little sister but now that Oliver is bringing it up in front of him, it's becoming hard to push the memories away.

"Oh! Uh! Obviously you didn't! Sorry for asking!" The kid stammers, noticing right away that he said something wrong.

Feeling a bit guilty that he's not able to act like a normal person, Percy is about to apologise to Oliver when the boy lowers his broomstick down to his level and starts floating just above the ice, the tip of his shoes brushing against it. He closes his mouth slowly and watches him look around the lake, a grin starting to form on his face.

"I didn't know you liked ice skating."

"I don't." Percy answers, more by reflex than anything.

His friend raises an eyebrow, looking pointedly at the skates he's wearing and at the ice under their feet. With a dubious tone, he says : "Right." Then, as an afterthought, he adds : "Hey. Can I come with you?"

"What? Aren't you flying?"

Oliver rolls his eyes.

"Obviously. But I can just fly back to the Gryffindor tower and grab my skates. I never got to use them since I came here."

Percy frown a bit at that. He never knew Oliver used to ice skate. Perplexed, he shares his thoughts, which makes the other boy shrug, a sheepish smile on his face.

"I mean," his friend explains, "My mum used to love to go skating with me when I was a kid but I don't do it as a sport or anything."

"Ginny really likes it." Percy blurts out without thinking.

 

It seems to be enough of an explanation as, after that, Oliver doesn't push the issue and calmly goes to fetch his own skates in his dormitory. He comes back a dozen or so minutes after he left and drops down on the ice, letting his broom hover over it on its own. He's better at skating than Percy is, having obviously done it much more often than him and he's quick to notice it and to try to give him pointers on how to go faster and on how to turn around more easily.

When the stars rise in the sky, they're still standing in the middle of the frozen lake, trying their best to skate backwards and, for the first time since he came back from the Burrow, Percy is able to forget what happened on Christmas Eve.

 

They skate together every day for the rest of the holidays and even keep it up a bit after that, in the cover of darkness, when they're sure no Prefect is going to catch them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The update schedule might speed up a bit in the next few weeks since school's over for the month. I still have exams but, once I'm done with them, I'll have more time to write.  
> Hope you liked this chapter  
> ciao


	9. Incendio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy runs into some issues.
> 
> Warning : Self-Harm (sort-of)

"You told me you were going to stay neutral."

 

Percy has to try very hard not to sigh when he hears the reproach, and he closes the book on his lap with a little more force that necessary. Standing in front of him, Connor crosses his arm, his face a cross between a childish pout and an annoyed glare. From the other side of the Common Room, Isha is trying to spy on them from behind her Charms homework. Her attempt, while good for an eleven year old, doesn't fool Percy in the least.

He turns his attention back to Connor, whose cheeks are now flushed. He takes notice of the way his fists keep closing and opening. The boy really has to learn how to control his emotions if he wants to keep playing the Slytherin game.

"So?" Percy answers, leaning back in his chair. He is in no mood for mind games, the school started up only four days ago but, already, he's been having a hard time dodging his brothers and all of the teachers that want to 'have a talk with him'. He can't wait for this situation to blow over.

"So you didn't stay neutral!"

Connor leans forward and whispers, glaring in Isha's direction as he does so :

"I know she gave you something."

Percy thinks about the two leather bound tomes hidden in his old chest's secret compartiment and he shivers. Of course, everyone in Slytherin already knows that he owes Isha a favour, even if it happened only three days ago. Thankfully, no one knows what he got in exchange, once this goes out, however, he'll have to be extremely careful around the other snakes. What happens in Slytherin stays in Slytherin but blood mages have a reputation even in the darkest circles, if he is ever mistaken as one, things could end badly for him.

"You owe her." Connor adds pointedly. "That's not neutral."

"It's a trade," Percy sighs, "I'm not on her side and I'm not on your side either. She just happens to have something I want."

"That's not—"

Connor stops talking to calm himself and, after taking a few deep breaths, he whispers back :

"That's not how this work. You're working for her."

"Just like I'm working for you."

Now frankly annoyed and wanting nothing more than to be left alone, Percy stands up, forcing the half blood boy to quickly step back. Coldly, he tells him, making sure he's loud enough for everyone listening in to understand his words :

"Keep me out of this, Connor. I don't want to be involved in this. If you want me to do something, you give me something in exchange. _That's_ how it works."

On that note, he storms out of the Common Room, ducking out into the hallways and almost running to the nearest secret passage. He misses Gryffindor and its simple social dynamics dearly. He's already spent a few years in politics and those few years were enough, that he has to deal with it now, on top of everything else, is more than a little annoying. Not for the first time since he first came back to Hogwarts, he regrets the fact that he couldn't become a lion for the second time. Sharing a dorm with Oliver would have been miles better than sharing one with the little snakes he had to deal with everyday. Sure, they're cute and mostly innocent but they're also future political menaces and he hasn't got enough energy to deal with them nowadays, most of his willpower goes into research and avoiding any social interaction.

 

If it was the week-end, Percy'd have rushed to the Lake and sent a message to Oliver to ask him to join him there, but it's only Thursday and he already has a pile of homework and "afterclass projects", as Snape put it, to complete. Of course, it's nothing complicated enough to warrant any worrying but he does have to be at least a bit responsible. Being the best in his year isn't that difficult, for now, but he has to keep a good work ethic if he wants to keep himself from slipping later on. When his yearmates grow up, he'll suddenly have a lot more competition.

Stopping in the middle of one of the many secret passageways used by the Prefects, who share the knowledge of their location from generation to generation, he thinks about going back to the dungeon to grab his quill and his writing kit before deciding against it. He can get rid of the essays later this night, when the other boys are asleep. For now, he can do the practical work. By now, both Flitwick and Minerva have started assigning them spells to practice on their own and, even if he could do them in his sleep, it's always good to train his core, especially with how weak it persists on being.

He didn't remember his magic being so hard to access as a child, years as a competent wizard had made sure to erase that, but now that he's living it again, he can't help but be endlessly frustrated by it. Even if he wanted to, he couldn't go around blasting Death Eater's heads off and the fact that he doesn't even have that as an _option_ is a bit disheartening.

 

He sneaks into a locked classroom, one he thinks is used by the journalism club, which meets on Tuesday and Friday nights, and sits down in front of a desk, taking his wand out. The Charm he's supposed to be working on is Incendio, a spell he knows very well for having used it again and again on the battlefield, or even in the wilderness, when he needed some warmth and sharing heat with his squad mates wasn't enough.

He closes his eyes briefly, picturing a roaring tongue of red and yellow flames, imagining it licking the wood of the desk in front of him, protected by enough runes that it won't catch fire. He feels his magic rise stlightly in his chest and, when he opens his eyes again, he knows he's ready.

"Incendio." He casts.

He whips his wand in the perfect form, uses the exact amount of intent and channels just enough power for it to work, fully expecting it to do so.

Except it doesn't.

Nothing comes out of his wand.

Not even smoke.

Perplexed, he looks at it then, slightly confused, he attempts the spell again. A flick of his wrist, a burst of intent and pure magic. "Incendio." This should do it.

It doesn't.

Once again, it doesn't.

Now annoyed, he tries again and again to cast the spell, getting more and more frustrated with himself. He knows this spell, he knows he knows it, he has used it hundreds, thousands of times in the past. Even during his first life, he never had any time pulling it off, he remembers being able to cast it in less than an hour. What's wrong with him? Why can't he use it now?

"Incendio!" He screams, to no avail. "Incendio!"

He's losing it, he knows it, he can feel it, the panic bubbling up in his mind, his heart starting to beat faster and faster in his chest. It isn't working. The spell isn't working. There's something wrong. He keeps trying and trying, screaming and screaming but nothing works, nothing comes out of his wand, no sparks, no smoke, no fire.

He stands up and jumps above the desk, turns towards it and flicks his wrist again, panic making his head hurt and spin.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" He says, because this, _this_ has to work. He has used it before, he has used it a lot in this life, he knows this is going to work.

It doesn't.

Nothing comes out of his wand, nothing moves in front of him. The desk sits still, heavy wood lifeless above the stone floors. His breath has picked up so much that he's almost panting by now, as if he had run a marathon. He feels tired but he hasn't done anything.

Why isn't this working?

"Lumos!" He tries, the simplest spell of them all, easy enough for a Muggleborn first year to succeed on their first try. He does it perfectly, his movements honed by years of practice but, when he looks at the tip of his wand, there is no light, no signs of magic.

Is this a nightmare?

He pinches himself to see if he's sleeping and, when nothing changes, he throws his wand to the floor and punches the wall. The pain radiates in his hand, then in his arm but it doesn't wake him up. He's still there and he still can't do any magic. Something's wrong with him. Something's very very wrong with him.

He punches the wall again and, this time, he hears a loud, sinister crack and the pain that flows through him is enough to make him black out for a second.

 

Merlin.

 

He stumbles towards his wand, falls to his knees next to it and grabs it with trembling hands. Wildly, he swings it in the direction of his injury, lights dancing in front of his eyes from the pain. He's dizzy, he's lost, he's angry. His magic isn't responding. It's supposed to respond. How is he supposed to save his family if he can't cast a spell?

"Ferula." He mutters.

His hand hurts and nothing changes, his bones are still broken and blood is still dripping from his opened skin. He changes tactics and almost cries out :

"Episkey!"

Still nothing. He screams in anger and slams his already broken hand into the floor. The pain is so great that he collapses and starts sobbing. This isn't right. He shouldn't be doing this. What would mum say if she saw him like this? What would his brothers say?

He hasn't even soundproofed the room, what if someone hears him?

 

Percy straightens up slowly, still on his knees, with his back curved towards the floor an his head bowed. Tears and droplets of blood are falling to the ground under his face but he couldn't care less. He has to do this. He has to. Nothing's wrong with him. Nothing can be wrong with him. He's Percy Weasley. He's twenty-eight. He's a theorist. He's a soldier. He can do this.

"Brackium Emendio." He says, pushing every last drop of his magic into the spell. His core screams at him and all of his body feels like it's on fire but he doesn't care. He has seen worse. He has survived countless Cruciatus curses, he has survived the death of his siblings, the death of his friends. He can do this much.

Something deep inside of him snaps and it resonates throughout his soul. It's as if a black hole had just opened in his chest, draining all of his energy within it. He drops his wand to the floor and, soon, it's his whole body who drops, hitting the stone with a thud, even though he can't quite feel it because he can't feel anything but the pain and the black hole, sucking more and more of his magic inside of it.

 

Something's wrong with him.

 

**oOo**

 

_They were never in love but, in the middle of a war, it was always nice to have someone to go back to, the nights you felt at your most vulnerable. There was never an excuse to be given for him to slip into her bed or for her to slip into his. No justification to be given. They weren't in love but they were something, not quite friends, certainly not lovers, but maybe partners. Partners in battle and in desperation, partners in this war that never ended and in this pain that only just started._

_It began after the night of Charlie's death, right at the beginning of it all, a few months after the Battle of Hogwarts. It began with him drunk off his mind and her, grieving and desperate. They had fallen in bed together, fucked and, soon enough, it had become an habit._

_It wasn't the first time Percy had been in a relationship like this, he had been with a few men, back when he was younger, who wouldn't accept to be seen publicly with him and for whom love was out of the question. He didn't mind, in fact, it was better this way._

_There was never supposed to be any attachement._

_And, in a way, there wasn't. At least, not between them._

 

_When he learned about her, he cried, and so did Audrey. They cried together and laughed at their stupidity and at their carelessness. If they had noticed it earlier, it might have been salvageable but they were in the middle of a battlefield and now it had been one month and there were no more potions available for that, nothing could be done, even Muggle hospitals wouldn't consider it._

_And, in eight months, Percy would be a father._

_They named her Lucy._

_She was beautiful, with golden hair and light brown eyes that seemed to be always laughing, she was a ray of sunshine._

_She was everything._

 

_His mum had been so happy._

 

_But things never lasted, in the war, and innocence was akways the first thing to die._

 

_Oh, how careless they had been._

 

_**(I didn't know)** _

**oOo**

 

The floor is cold and hard underneath him when he wakes up but he still lays on top of it for a few minutes. His throat doesn't feel sore and his cheeks aren't wet, he hasn't cried, he hasn't screamed. This is new, this is something different. In a way, it scares him : he knows nightmares, he knows the faces of his siblings as they die, but he doesn't know Lucy, hasn't spent as much time thinking about her than he has about Ginny, and about Fred.

She just wasn't there long enough.

Slowly, he sits down, flexing his unarmed right hand, free from any fracture. The spell worked but the memory it brought back, if it wasn't as brutally painful as what he's used to, is one of the worst he has ever had to deal with since he came back. He doesn't want to think about Lucy, he doesn't want to think about Audrey. Lucy is never going to exist in this reality, Lucy ever only existed for a year, nearly a decade ago, in another time. He has to focus on other things, on other deaths.

 

He twists to his side and vomits his lunch on the floor.

 

Shakily, he wipes his mouth and stands up. He feels exhausted, drained, but, when he looks out the window, he can see that the sun has just started to set. It's winter so it means that i's barely 5pm. He hasn't been unconscious for long, even if that dreamed had seemed to last for months.

 

_**(I didn't know)** _

 

Slowly, he bends down and picks up his wand. He turns it towards the mess on the floor and steadies himself. He can do this.

"Evanesco." He says.

 

_**(I'm sorry)** _

 

The drain is massive and, for a second, he feels like he's going to faint. When he's done swaying, however, he can see that the floor is squeaky clean once more, and that there's nothing left of his passage there, not even blood stains. He feels tired, though, so utterly exhausted and, even if he's eleven, even if he's only a first year, he knows this isn't normal. He never used to get tired like this after a simple spell, he used to be able to cast ten evanescos without breaking a sweat.

Maybe it's sleep deprivation, he thinks. Maybe he's overworked himself and his body is catching up to him but it _doesn't make sense_. Spells use magic that comes from the core and the magic that comes from the core is distinct from the magic that comes from the body. Exhaustion does affect concentration and intent in spell casting but it doesn't affect magic, it doesn't affect the core.

Even if his body is finally collapsing on him, it shouldn't have this effect on his spellwork, it shouldn't make him this tired. During the wars, when he ran on days of no sleep and barely any food, he could still cast enough spells to save his life, no matter how powerful they were. Physical exhaustion has nothing to do with magic.

 

He doesn't bother trying to cast Incendio again, he knows he can do it. His magic is back and, even if it exhausts him to use it, at least he's able to do so. He'll just have to find a way to go around that, train his core again and again. With a lot of hard work, nothing is impossible, not even things that some might consider out of a fairy tale.

He managed to invent time travel, he can deal with a little tiredness.

 

When he walks out into the corridor, he comes accross Oliver, who beams at him and invites him to the Lake. Regretfully, he declines, not feeling up to walking the way there, and even less to actually skate on the ice. It's difficult to even put one foot in front of the other at this point and, were he not so stubborn, he's pretty sure he'd have collapsed by now.

"Are you alright?" Oliver asks him, looking at him with the same look his brothers used to get in their eyes whenever he did something strange this past two years.

"I'm fine." Percy sighs. "I'm just a bit tired."

The other boy frowns but doesn't add anything, only shrugs and runs away to join his group of Gryffindor friends. Some of them turn to stare at him curiously but he glares at them with enough fury to make them turn away. It's something he learned early on, to emulate his mother. It's what tended to be the most effective on the twins, when everything else failed.

Not that he has needed to keep the twins in check. Ever since he came back, they have ben unendlessly attentive and patient, two words he never expected he would ever link to them in his head.

People change. Hopefully, _he_ did not change for the worst.

 

He goes back to his dormitory and digs out the two dark books Isha had given him this very morning. They reek of so much dark magic that it should make his skin crawl but, by now, he's grown used to it. The smell of tainted blood feels almost familiar as he cracks open the pages and, when he looks over the runes written on some of them, he wonders, not for the first time, if there is a way he could test the formules provided without turning into a dark mage, or even worse, a blood mage.

He's a researcher by heart and it frustrates him not to be able to check if his theories are correct. Maybe there is a way for him to use these runes without turning into an abomination, it would for sure speed up his research, he'd be one step closer to finding how to stop the Dark Lord.

 

His mind is still reeling from the events of the late afternoon and he knows he's still unstable but, in that moment, he feels almost ready to grab the nearest knife and carve runes into his skin. He feels as if he's teetering on the edge of an empty, dark void as huge as life and death itself. The madness that crawls deep into his brain keeps pushing him towards it but, somehow, he resists, again and again.

 

He is Percy Weasley, a researcher, a Gryffindor, a soldier, and a light wizard.

 

Nothing less, and nothing more.

 

Never.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! I had to go to Paris for Christmas and I didn't bring my computer :P
> 
> Thanks to everyone again for reading, hope you liked this chapter, in which Percy fucks up a lot.
> 
> I think i'm going to add self-harm to the permanent tags 'cuz shit like this is going to happen again.


	10. Descent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy crosses the line.

No matter how long he stares at it, it doesn't change.

The scene is surprisingly reminiscent of his former life, the way blood dribbles from his fingers and onto the floor is eerily familiar and so is the faint scent of dark magic permeating the air. He has seen people put in similar situations but, back then, these peoples hadn't been him.

 

With a sigh, he rouses himself from his wondering and uses the snake embroided handkerchief his mother gave him last christmas to wipe most of the fluids away from the kitchen knife he borrowed a few hours earlier. It's reeking of magic now that it has been used in a sacrificial purpose and he knows from experience that it's going to be nearly impossible to purge it from its magical trace. He'll have to keep it then, hide it with the books under his bed and hope no one finds it.

 

Once the sacrificial weapon is back into his schoolbag, nestled between a registry of Hogwarts' students during the 50s and a roll of parchment on which he scribbled his observations reguarding his current experiment, he leans forward and gribs the lifeless body of the first bird.

It flops against his fingers, still a bit warm despite the fact that it bled out quite a long time ago. He doesn't have the energy to vanish it or even to burn it so he'll have to find another way to dispose of it. Bringing it next to the Forbidden Forest will surely do the tricks. Magical beasts don't care what rituals have been performed on their meals, only beings do and, as far as he knows, there aren't that many beings in the woods.

He stuffs the small corpse in a bunch of paper towels and turns his gaze on the second bird. Unlike its fellow animal, it is still alive and flying over his head, trying desperately to escape the bubble he has trapped it in. The simple act of conjuring a barrier around it has drained him of any semblance of energy he had before, which wasn't that much to begin with since he hasn't slept more than two hours in a night for weeks now, but he doesn't regret doing it. If anyone sees it as it currently is, they would immediately figure out that something's wrong with it.

Besides the way its eyes shine unnaturally, a permanent Lumos cast inside of them, the bloody runes engraved on its body are enough of a give-away to make sure Percy is fired from the castle should any teacher hear about it.

 

He sighs again and, slowly, rises to his feet.

Despite his extensive knowledge of written magic, this afternoon is the first time he has managed to successfully apply them on a living being since he first attempted it, back in February. Nearly three months of failing again and again and again and now, this. He's succeeded. He's on the right path.

But he isn't happy about it, like he expected he would be. He still feels empty. He still feels guilty.

He doesn't bother killing the bird, the Runes he has applied all around the room and over the door and windows guarantee that it'll be incinerated should anyone who isn't him disable the illusions he has put it under. This room, located in one of the least used wings of the castle, where all the disgraced clubs once held their office, is his most elaborated work in this life. A researcher needs a safe place to study, after all, and, in Hogwarts, he had to make do with what he had.

And, if the corridors seem colder and the paintings much more afraid of him than they were before he started experimenting, then that's just the rightful price of his success. He can't have everything, after all.

 

It wasn't supposed to go down that way.

He was supposed to go back in time and save everyone with his older mind and stronger magic, he was supposed to be able to fight for his family and assassinate the Dark Lord. He was supposed to still be himself by the end.

But he has the blood of two small birds on his hands and his core sings of dark magic and corruption, through the walls that block it from him. He can't use it, not without severe consequences on his body, but he can feel it, even as it's locked away from his conscious mind. It deteriorates, slowly but surely, not from unuse but from the strain he puts it under, from the darkness he brushes with every day, ever since he figured it out.

 

He can't use his magic.

 

He doesn't know if it's a consequence of his time travelling or if it's this body's way of making him understand that he's an outsider, that his soul doesn't belong here, but the results are the same : he can't use his magical core and, therefore, the only magic that remains in his reach is the one he can write down on a piece of paper, and the one in his body, that flows through his blood and cells, thanks to genetics. The one he isn't supposed to use.

He doesn't use it.

He has set himself some limits, he won't use his body's magic to do anything. He already has Runes to fake spells, he's been able to use them to reproduce first year Charms and Transfigurations ever since he came back in his nine year old body and, bored out of his mind, spent a year refining his old magical languages. He can go through classes without raising any suspicions, as long as he's able to engrave small runes on the sides of the object he's supposed to enchant, or hide a piece of paper against his wand, to make it glow, or throw out sparks of light. He can act like a normal student.

But he can't fight.

 

Runes are useless in a fight, they're too slow, too predictible, too limited. He can't use them to assassinate the Dark Lord just like he can't use them to carry himself through his school years. He'll be fine as long as he's on the first-year curriculum, even when he's on the second but, after that, he won't be able to hide anymore, won't be able to keep his grades up.

If a Healer look at his magical core, would they be able to detect the darkness?

He already knows the answer.

 

They would.

 

He's tainted, even though he hasn't made any change on his body ( _because he would never do that. He has fallen but he hasn't fallen that low_ ) but his mind is still darkened by what he has done, by the lives, innocent and free, he has taken. He's not a dark wizard, but he's getting there.

It makes him want to scream.

Why couldn't Potter have gone back in time? Why couldn't have Ron? They would have done a much better job than him, stuck like he is on such trivial things. The tyrant would have no qualms about using dark magic, and neither would his brother.

There's something wrong with his magic and he has tried again and again but he can't fix it and everything is spinning out of control so quickly. He needs to do research, he needs to find out things because that's the only thing he's good for, now that his wand won't answer him. He needs to be useful.

He needs to save them.

_**(Why do you do this to yourself?)** _

Percy looks out one of the dirty windows and directly at the Quidditch pitch, which can be seen from where he is. Gryffindor is playing today, against Slytherin so he was expected to show up and support his House's team but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He doesn't want to see Charlie, flying on his newly acquirred broom and he doesn't want to see Bill, on the other side of the pitch, sitting in the Gryffindor tribune, where he should have also been.

_**(Why do you do this us?)** _

His life is a mess, a repetitive mess that won't stop turning and turning and rewinding again and again. He's working as hard as he can but he's not making any progress. He's trying but, in the two years he has been there, he has accomplished nothing.

_**(When is this going to be over?)** _

He touches his wand, tucked away in one of his pocket, useless to him as he is now, with the tips of his fingers and feels the hollowness inside his chest deepen when he realises that he can't feel any spark of magic in return. His core is asleep and he can't rouse it. He has nothing.

_**(When you're done, can I please see the sun again?)** _

He doesn't know.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay, I had exams and got a new job so that took a lot of time away from me. Plus, I'm bored to death of writing Hogwarts so I didn't want to write this story. I'm going to speed things up so I can actually write what I'm interested about so sorry about that, I'll try to keep it logical.
> 
> Also Percy done goofed yo
> 
> Ah! Update schedule is going to be more sporadic starting from now. I'm picking up sports at a higher level + have a time consuming job + have my law studies, which leaves little time for writing. I'll still write ofc, cause I'm a terrible student and I don't work enough, but I don't know yet if this will be every week, every two weeks, every three weeks. No idea. Will tell you when I know.


	11. The cat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS : Animal abuse, violence, extremely dubious moralities, basically a mental breakdown.
> 
> This chapter includes a pretty dark scene of animal abuse so if you don't want to see it, stop reading at "yet another way his body is failing him".

**_15\. Explain, in one sentence, what a magical core is._ **

_A magical core is the source of a wizard's power_ , is what he knows he, as a first year boy, is supposed to write.

 _A magical core is the purest form magic can take in a being's body, unique to everyone, it has been theorised that it has some semblant of conscience, or at least a semi-awareness of its existence. Other contradictory theories have surmised that, while not being aware, it is connected to a wizard's brain in such a way that it reacts to external stimulis such as extreme emotions, which can cause bouts of accidental magic. Although not the sole kind of magic present in a human's body, it is the only one that is usable consciously. A magical core is self-replenishing and, if it can be exhausted, it naturally goes back to its original strength after a few hours, or days, in the worst of cases. As it does not draw on the body to do so, magical exhaustion differs from physical or mental tiredness. Some people are able to take a look at their core, after extensive meditation, and it is even considered an art in some magical countries, however the benefits of doing so have never been proved efficiently. All in all, the core is an essential part of a wizard's being and what sets them apart from non-magical beings such as Muggles and even Squibs, whose core remains forever asleep,_  is what he first thinks of, when he sees the question.

 _A magical core is one of the two major sources of magic in the body, the other one being the wizard's innate magic, linked to their blood and flesh_ , is what the darkest part of his mind whispers in his ear.

He ignores it, just like he ignores the eyes of a thousand painted faces, when he wanders in the castle at night, and he scribbles down the answer he knows will give him full marks without raising any suspicion. He's a talented young wizard, nothing more, nothing less. He doesn't want anyone to have to take a look at his magic, especially not now since he has started to-

_**16\. What are the pillars of spell casting?** _

_Power, intent and will_ , he writes, before he's even done reading the question. This is a trick question, as first year students are expected to assume pronunciation is important in magic, but it's not. Pronunciation, just like wand movements, are a subsidiary of intent, a crutch weaker and younger wizards use when their mind isn't imaginative enough to carry a spell on its own. Percy has always been good with intent, his transfigurations always were the most detailed.

He's going to get a bonus point on this answer.

_**17\. What are two charms that could be used for house chores?** _

_Evanesco_ , he writes, thinking about getting rid of trash, crumpled paper and rotting bodies left in the sun for too long.  _For its cleaning properties_.

 _Wingardium Leviosa_ , he adds after a while, remembering how useful it had been in clearing the ruins of King's Cross station.  _To reach under furniture more easily_.

_**18\. Draw the wand movements associated with the Lumos spell.** _

He details it carefully, adding an arrow at the end that he shouldn't know is here. It's the one taught to second year student to go with the -maxima add on. It's supposed to make the charm more powerful, more focused. Here, too, he'll get extra credits.

_**19\. Where was the Unlocking charm first discovered and what is its name?** _

_Alohomora_ , Percy writes, the incantation familiar by now, used countless times to get into poorly protected muggle places. It had helped him a lot, back in the war, even if, against any kind of magical warding, it became completely useless.

 _First discovered in Africa,_ he recalls,  _by an unnamed sorcerer. Date of creation is speculated to be in the late 1500s, even if no evidence has been found yet._

**20\. Out of the three following spells, which one is the most recent ?**

**☐ Alohomora**

**☐ Reparo**

**☒ Lumos**

 

Without bothering to proofread his answers, he knows he has gotten all of them right, and with ease, Percy stands up from his chair and brings his paper up to professor Flitwick, who watches him approach with a frown. A quick look at the magical timer floating up in the air is enough for him to know that he's been fast, perhaps excessively so, but having to sit in the middle of a room full of children, all of them shifting and breathing and coughing, is enough to make his skin crawl and his fingers twitch, ready to grab his wand, useless as it has become now. He'll allow himself to stand out a bit if it means being able to get out of the place quickly, he doesn't know how long he could have endured the tension in the room. Every single one of these kids are stressed and he can feel it in his bones.

He doesn't like it.

He grabs the quill professor Flitwick hands him and signs his name on the presence sheet, noticing the way the man's eyebrow rise when he skims over his exam. He doesn't stay long enough for him to make any comment about his work, keeping his gaze straight forward to avoid catching the eyes of one of his classmates. He's not feeling like interacting with anyone right now.

With most of the students still stuck in exam hell, the corridors are mostly empty, and he's free to go back to his dormitory without ducking behind a door to avoid being seen by one of his brothers or worse, by one of their many friends. His extra-curricular activities have allowed him to be busy enough to keep away from them but he'll soon have to return to the family home, where he knows he'll be confronted by the rest of the Weasleys. It's been more than six months since his slip-up with Bill but he still can't forgive himself, he still can't forget about how natural it had felt, to send him flying, about the sound of his body hitting the wall and about the fierce joy he had felt upon hurting him.

Doing the same thing now would drain him of most, if not all, of his energy but still, he  _could_  do it. He's a dangerous, dangerous child.

Except he's not really a child, and there lies all the problem.

There are dozens of unopened letters hidden underneath his bed, from his mother, from his father and from his many siblings. He feels a bit like he's in his early twenties all over again, trying to avoid any contact with his family. Exept, this time political disagreements aren't the thing keeping them apart and, this time, he's the only one that's left feeling bitter and lonely.

His mind is organised and efficient, thanks to all of Snape's reluctant Occlumency lessons. The potions master insists that he is hopeless at the art, fooled like he is by the illusion Luna must have built around his consciousness, but, despite his snide remarks, Percy still learns for him. He's not a good teacher, not by far, but he is a knowledgeable one. He's not a master occlumen, but he's still good at it, and it allows him to cast away the memory of his family, and the insecurities it always brings with it, to focus on his work as soon as he enters the dormitory. He has a lot to do, before he leaves the castle, and he has to make sure he has enough time to finish all of his self-appointed tasks.

Once the satchel containing his rituals kit (the knife he stole from the kitchen, a vial of magically charged blood and a few pages of experimentations and diagrams) slung across his shoulder, he leaves the dungeons and heads for the trophy room. The latest stages of his investigation into the identity of the Dark Lord have led him to believe that he must have had some sort of influence in the castle during his school year, enough to gain a following and an influence as soon as he left Hogwarts. It's very likely that the man is a former Slytherin, considering the sheer amount of snakes in his army, so he must have been a player in the same kind of game Isha and Connor play between themselves. A power struggle between teenagers, to train them for the world of politics. A safe way to prepare for the world and also a good method to gain contacts and followers early on.

Percy isn't a player, not officially, but he does keep an eye on the state of the game. Currently, Isha is winning, which isn't surprising considering she has had the experience of growing up in a pureblood family. Connor, however, is quickly learning, and he has taken to glancing at Percy a bit more, now that he figured out that Isha is using him as a way to prove her influence and power.

They both see him as a pawn and he isn't proud enough to play any other part, this would just be vanity. The Dark Lord, however, would not have settled for a role like this, he must have been a leader, most likely a prefect, even.

He writes down the names of every slytherins that have received an award in the 30s, 40s and 50s, all eighty-four of them, and stare at them until his eyes burn. The Dark Lord is one of them, and once he has thinned the list down to only the wizards he has never heard of and are still alive, he knows he'll be that much closer to finding out his identity. And then, his investigation will really be able to take off.

He goes back into the corridors, shivering despite the heat. He itches for a fight, for a way to draw his wand and curse again and again. Everything is too calm, everyone is too happy. Children are difficult to live with, and he's at the end of his rope. He's tired and he's alone and he's so, so cold.

 _They never teach that_ , he thinks, stepping into his lab,  _that using black magic makes you so cold. All the time_.

He thinks it's less due to the darkness of said magic and more to the fact that he's draining on his body's energy itself, instead of using his core, but he doesn't know, or care, enough to prove it to himself. He'd rather view it as one of the many drawbacks of blood magic than as what is probably is, yet another way his body is failing him.

The cat he has captured and thrown into the room hisses at him when he comes close, knife already in his hand, as well as the needle he uses to carve the more delicate runes. If everything he's planned goes alright, he's not going to kill it, he shouldn't even injure it.

He feels like he wants to sob when he immobilises the cat with a spell that leaves him drained and panting, but he doesn't have it in him. He used to love cats and had adopted one as soon as he had the possibility to, when he was still an adult. Percy Weasley used to be a cat person. Percy Weasley just stole a cat from the corridors and is about to experiment on it, marking it with dark magic for the rest of its most likely short life.

He has never hated himself as much as he does in this moment, as he slides the needle under the animal's skin, tearing it apart and healing it with his own magic, pouring into the cat's empty core. The runes are easy to carve and he adds a few symbols between them, some he has picked up from other languages, some he has invented himself, trying to follow the flow of magic and what feels  _right_.

When he's done, the cat is still unable to move, but its skin has healed itself, no traces of the runes left on its body. Percy has made sure to anchor them underneath the skin and the fur, where it can't be seen. The only proof remaining of his little experiment is the mixture of blood and fur on the ground, as well as the shaking of his hands.

He just used blood magic on a cat-he just-

This is business as usual. He needs to calm the hell down.

Everyone is still taking their exams, he thinks, laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation, and he's here, kneeling in front of an innocent cat that he has just butchered to satisfy his scientific curiosity... or rather to prove to himself that his theories are right, that he is, in fact, getting a grasp on how blood magic work. This is the first time he has used one of his own rituals on something bigger than a rat and, if this works...

He reaches into his pocket for a lighter and, when the cat's fur fail to catch fire, not even shivering under the heat of the flame, he can't help but laugh again. The sound is hollow, and so is his mind. There's a hole in his chest that he can't fill and, as he places his hand against the animal's back, trying in vain to comfort it, he can feel it grow bigger and bigger. He's losing himself, he knows it. He's unraveling faster than he ever thought possible, away from any form of support, all alone.

He can do this on his own, he's smart.

However, he's not sure if he's strong enough to see the war through without losing his mind.

He's not even sure he can finish the year without becoming insane.

Hell, maybe he's already lost it.

He glances down at the broken body of the cat, now looking at him with wide pupils and fearful eyes, and the needle falls from his hand. He bends down to rub the blood matted fur, a poor attempt at comfort.

"I'm so sorry," he whispers. "It's not you, it's for the Dark Lord, it's to kill him."

The cat doesn't answer, can't answer, but, in his mind, Percy knows it hates him all the same.

 

**oOo**

 

He goes back to see it.

His exams are done now, he's got only a week and a half left at the school, a time most students use to spend with their friends and play by the lake, but that he has planned to fill with research and experiments. He has birds to catch, he has runes to carve and names to find.

Except he can't do any of it.

Everytime he closes his eyes, he sees it.

Its fur is  white with a few gray spots and it's a bit overweight, most likely spoiled by its owner. In Percy's mind he always sees it prone and covered in its own blood. He couldn't release it, not after modifying it so essentially, so he left it in the lab, with a bit of meat he got from the kitchen and a bowl of water. He left it there, not wanting to deal with how it made him feel and, now, he has to figure out a way to deal with it.

Thing is, he always kills the birds.

It's easy, to kill a rat, to kill a bird. One snap and it's done. It's easier than killing a man, that's for sure, but, despite that, Percy can't kill the cat.

He tries to, puts his hands next to its head to snap its neck, raises his wand to curse it, even brings his knife close to its throat, ready to slit it open, but he just  _can't do it_.

He's always cold nowadays, but watching it cower in fear when he tries to approach it makes him feel ten times worse, likes he's stuck in the middle of a snowstorm, with no end to it in sight. He's become a monster to this small animal, he's the one that has made it suffer, that has ruined its life. It probably had a nice master that spoiled it and now it's stuck in an old classroom with a dangerous eleven year old that experimented on it. Somewhere in Hogwarts, a student is looking for their pet.

But Percy can't give it back, because he's changed it too much and, if someone found out what had been done to it and traced it back to him, everything would be over.

So, he goes back to see it.

Everyday for that week and a half of freedom, instead of holing up in the library and figuring out the Dark Lord's true name, instead of catching birds and killing them with his too small hands, he sits in the lab and he looks at the cat. After a while, the cat starts looking back. After a longer time, it stops hissing at him. Its fur glows red, when it catches the light  _just right_ , and it has significantly slimmed down since it won't eat most of what Percy gives it, but it  _is_  less aggressive.

He should kill it, he really should.

He doesn't want to.

Percy Weasley is a cat person.

Two days before the end of the school year, the cat lets him pet it and Percy almost cries. He's a monster, he realises, as he pets the poor, innocent pet he has torn away from its owner, he's becoming what he has sworn to fight and he hates it. He bloody hates it but he doesn't know if he has another way to reach his goals, if there is another solution to the obstacles he'll eventually have to face and bring down. How can he solve the problem of the Dark Lord's immortality if he doesn't figure out the truth behind blood magic? How will he defeat enemies for whom moral has no meaning, if he lets it stop him? How can he save his family if he can't even sacrifice a cat to protect them?

He looks at the cat and he sees, mirrored in the red hues of its fur, the monster he's starting to become.

For the first time since he came back, he asks himself...

_Is it really worth it?_

 

( **no** )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry, I love cats, I don't know why I did this.  
> Percy is so fucked up omfg. He'll start to get better soon? Somewhat?
> 
> next chapter is summer so thats going to be fun I guess
> 
> also I'm changing the tags for this story to add a few ones, since we're going down a pretty dark road. I'll just say that it does get better soon. Percy just can't deal with his situation on his own and his mental state is spiralling downward now that he has no support left.


	12. Red Summer I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy enjoys (endures) time with his family.
> 
> Content warning : self-harm. See end notes for more infos about content warnings and what will happen to them in later chapters.

The cat will fit right in, he tries to convince himself. They have about five or so barn cats moving in and out of the Burrow, it's not like his parents are going to be suspicious if another one comes begging for food. Plus, he's sure none of his brothers are friend with the ravenclaw kid he took it from so they won't be able to recognise it. Getting it from the castle to the house isn't even that difficult considering how proficient he is when he comes to runes. He's had his chest magically enlarged as soon as he could and he took care, when modifying it, to put silencing runes all over its lid. It'll contain the pet well enough, he's sure of it.

Considering all of this, he should be perfectly at ease when it comes to the bloody cat. It's going to be safe, away from him and from the classroom, well fed and kept by his family, always eager to help those in need. His mum would give it left-over meat from the butcher and his siblings would play with it all day, it's going to be happy.

But what if, while petting it, some of the runes etched on its skin become visible to his father? What if, one day, it casually walks into the burning fireplace? What if the other animals can smell the fresh scent of blood that all of the books Percy has read explain is going to follow it all its life?

Blood magic leaves traces, traces you can never erase, no matter how old or how slight they are.

Maybe it's easier worrying about the cat, he thinks, looking at his perfectly made bed and at the pile of old clothes his mother has dug up from Bill and Charlie's closets. Maybe it's easier thinking how unsafe the cat could be in his house than to realise he'll be stuck in said house for the next two months. It's tense, here, he can feel it. The lack of contact, his failing to reply to any of the letters his parents and siblings sent since winter break has damaged their bond. They don't know how to talk to him and the worry they once held has slowly turned to a low, simmering anger. It's easy enough to identify, he's been the recipient of it for a long, very long time.

It shouldn't feel so good to have everyone in his family be mad at him but it's just so familiar that he can't help it. A bit of the dissonance is gone. The worry, the affection, it was so out of touch with his memories, with the war and the harshness, with the constant fighting... They don't hate him, they can't hate him yet, but he welcomes the frustration in the twins' glances like an old friend. He's a pariah again and it feels wonderful.

It really does.

Really.

 

Slowly, he unpacks, taking out of his chest item after item. There's his potion kit, in perfect condition thanks to Isha's patronage, and there's his brand new Hogwarts uniform, curtesy of his head of House.

By the end of the year, Snape had given into his exasperation and replaced most of their Occlumency sessions with the usual punishments he gives the gryff students. It's a shame, really. Studying anything other than blood magic or the first year curriculum is a true blessing. By now, he's pretty sure he has become a half competent Occlumen. He's able to understand his own mind more easily than he once did and, when he tries to, it's easy to fly from memory to memory, repressing the ones he doesn't want to think about or wants to hide. Snape did help, in a way, but Luna's wards make it so that he can't realise it. To him, Percy will always be a lazy student, unable to grasp the mind arts.

A waste of his time.

He places his blood magic research flat on his bed. The three small notebooks are written in code, obviously, but he still needs to find a way to conceal them and the sharp needles that come with. It's going to be odd, not having to do any research for two months. Honestly, he doesn't know how he's going to bear it. The inactivity almost made him go crazy when he first came back and now that he's gotten used to working again, he's not sure how much boredom he can take before breaking down and doing something stupid.

With a bit of reluctance, he leaves his wand on his desk. Keeping it with him would have been useless. Magic is all but forbidden to him now, a simple Leviosa spell almost makes him faint, needless to say a proper hex would seriously endanger his life. Who thought that regularly using natural magic instead of core magic would be so detrimental? He has almost no endurance left.

Plus, considering what happened the last time he was allowed to keep his wand around his family, maybe keeping it stored away for a while is the safest option.

 

Going to dinner without his weapon of choice feels  _wrong_ , especially with the way all heads turn when he enters the room. He dearly wants to reach for it, to grasp it and erect a barrier between himself and the judgemental eyes of his relatives but, when he lowers his hand, his skin only brushes the helm of his pants. He's unarmed.

It's for the best, he tells himself. It's better for everyone involved.

He sits down betwen Ron and his mother and keeps his eyes firmly locked on his plate as conversations die out around him. Thankfully, in order to pursue his life-long dream of becoming a politician, he has had to learn how to keep from blushing in the infamous Weasley way, so his ears don't turn red despite how much he resents being the center of the attention. It's quite clear that, unlike himself who would rather be left alone, his family very much intend to understand why he didn't reach out to them in the second semester. Thing is, he doesn't really know how to explain it.

It's not that he  _wants_  to be alone. It's just that throwing his father's mail into the fire feels familiar and safe. He can't hurt them if he isn't here to do so, right?

Percy isn't hungry, but he still picks at the potato salad in front of him. As always, it tastes like ash and blood but he doesn't let that show on his face. Everyone is still looking at him.

It's so silent in the room that he can hear his own breathing, the way Ron shifts into his chair, the sounds of George's fork hitting the bottom his empty plate. He doesn't want to be the first one to talk, he has nothing to say.

"So... Boys. How was your year?"

His father's voice sounds that much louder in the empty air, adding to the tension without quite cutting or breaking it. Bill answers first, as he always does, leader of the Weasley siblings that he is. He's subdued, more tame than usual, bit more like a kid than like the strong-willed young man he's slowly turning into.

"T'was good. Professor Mc Gonagall told me I did a good job as a Prefect. She said- She said I might make Head Boy."

"Oh Bill, it's wonderful." Their mother say, voice shaking slightly, eyes darting between him and Percy.

"Yeah..."

Silence again. Charlie breaks it by talking about his friends. They're getting into trouble again. In his first life, Percy remembers occasionally studying with them. They were an odd bunch, all four Houses mixed together, all of them charismatic and powerful in their own right, just like his own family.

"And you Percy, how was it?" Dad asks, once their resident draconologist is done quietly telling them about his school adventures.

Percy puts his fork and knife back down on the table, his salad forgotten, almost untouched. He has barely eaten anything but, suddenly, he feels nauseous.

"What about your friends? Bill told me you're getting on great with another boy your age. What's his name again?"

Oliver's face flashes before his eyes, out of breath from the ice skating but smiling and laughing, happy to be sharing a moment with him. He's only a kid but he means almost as much to Percy than he did when they were both adults. It's unbelievable that an eleven years old child still trusts him after seeing him at his worst, after countless nightmares and panic attacks, but, after all that, he's still here.

He wonders if Bill and Charlie feel it, how precious his friend is to him. He wonders if they understand why it's him and not them in this position. He couldn't make one of his siblings bear what Oliver has willingly taken on.

Stupid gryffindors.

"Percy?"

His eyes leave his plate and the abandonned salad to land on his father's face. He's afraid, frustrated and a bit sad, it's easy to recognise, it's easy to feel. It's like a window into the past, it's like coming home after his first week at the ministry only to discover his family doesn't approve of his career choice.

From across the table, sitting next to Bill and his twin, Fred violently hits his plate, shattering it in the middle. His fist is closed so it shouldn't hurt but, for a split second, Percy wonders if he might have injured something doing so, the blow is that brutal.

"Why didn't you answer any of our letters?"

Despite coming from a boy not even ten, the question burns stronger than an Incendio to the chest.  _Why didn't we talk more often?_  he used to think, after Fred's death.  _Why am I unable to express love like you can?_  The frustration and anger that his brother radiates makes him feel as if he were in his old timeline, talking to the ghost of his deceased sibling. Why did he throw the letters into the fire? Why didn't he come back to them after the Dark Lord was proven to be alive and Dumbledore was proven to tell the truth? Why did he keep them at arms length?

"Fred..." Their father says, quietly, hands clenching into fists, knuckles turning white.

"I sent you a drawing! I took a long time doing it! Did you even see it? We wrote to you!"

"Fred!" Their mother screams.

There are a hundred answers Percy could give, all of them hurtful. he never saw any of the drawings sent his way neither did he read any of the letters. He could reply that he doesn't care, that he never did, he could ask for forgiveness.

He doesn't want to do either of those things. He doesn't want to speak to his family. Why can't they leave him alone to do his research? He can't rest while the Dark Lord is alive, he can't play family when his mind is always screaming at him to run, to fight, to kill. He doesn't want to be here with them. He wants to be back in his classroom, where he can't hurt anyone, where the only victims of the darkness he holds within are the animals unfortunate enough to be caught. They don't deserve this, they don't deserve him.

He looks at Fred, at his eyes shining with tears, at the way his fists shake. He's a boy, he has never seen war, he has never seen death.

There's a knife in front of him. There's a knife in front of everyone here. Even without his magic, it would be so easy to-

Breathe.

"Fred, calm down!" Bill yells, raising out of his chair, his anger at Percy exploding out of him as he grabs their little brother's shoulder to push him back into his chair. He's not even a man yet but he's already so consumed by rage.

"Don't touch me like that!" Fred protests, fighting against the teen with all the strength of his ten year old body. George rushes in to help him, insulting Bill as he does so. Next to their mother, Ginny bursts into tears.

From beneath the thin veil of calm Occlumency brings him, Percy can feel his heart start to beat faster and faster. He caused this. He ruined the family once again.

He desperately wants to scream that he's sorry, desperately wants to beg for forgiveness but the same unnatural calm Snape doesn't know he has managed to teach him keeps him from doing so. He can't break now. This is what he wanted. This what he always wanted. He needs to be estranged from his family for everything to work, for them not to be hurt. This is what he wants. This is what he  _needs_.

Bile rises in his throat but, through the screams and the crying, through his heart feeling like it's about to break and through his Occlumency shields, that take blow after blow, ready to crumble, he picks up his knife and his fork.

Ron joins in on the crying and Percy starts eating again.

 

**oOo**

 

 

He goes back to his room right after his disastrous first dinner back home and, as he stands in front of his window, feeling more useless and empty than he ever has, his eyes catch on a ray of dying sunlight that lands directly on top of his bed, reflecting off it with a metallic glint. He forgot one of his needles there.

He spends far too much time staring at it. It's stupid but-

He shakes his hand and turns back towards the garden, trying to calm himself by looking at the wheat fields, imagining shapes in the clouds, thinking about Luna, who used to do this all the time during the war. She always could find beauty even in the dreariest of places.

 

**oOo**

 

This night, he doesn't fall asleep with his wand into his hand. In fact, he all but forgets about it, absorbed that he is by the needles he has set on the floor, between his blood magic notebooks and his old journals narrating all that happened during the Second Wizarding War.

He has an idea.

Dusk turns into midnight and the idea, that has been floating into his head for months now but that he has never dared to envision due to its sheer darkness, takes form. He considers it more and more as the altercation his family had replays into his head. They're coming apart because of him. He's hurting them by staying away, just like he's hurting them when he tries to remain close.  _How did he do it the first time around?_

He sets down his pen, pushes away the sheet of paper he's been writing on.

_He remembers._

Slowly, he takes one of his needles. Hesitates. Puts it back on the floor.

_The first Percy Weasley did things his family disagreed with._

Instead, he grabs his knife.

_He made decisions that went against the classic light-oriented views the Weasleys held._

With his free hand, he lowers his pants slightly to expose the skin of his right hip, smooth and free of any scar.

_He sided, even inadvertandly, with the dark._

It's surprisingly easy to make the first cut into his torso, to get the blood flowing, pattering onto his floor just as he starts lacing his natural magic in it, pouring all of his strength and energy into turning it into the beginning of a masterpiece.

_The Weasleys' morals always were especially strong._

The needles find their way into his hip almost naturally, he's used to this ritual by now.

_Being sorted into Slytherin wasn't enough to keep them away, to make them understand that he wasn't like them._

He has been thinking about this design for a long time, not quite admitting to himself that he intended to carve it into his own skin.

_He's useless if he keeps worrying about his family all the time, just like they're in danger if they stay close to him, he's going to walk down a path too dark for them to follow._

Pushed by his magic, his own blood turns to ink and readily starts painting his skin, spreading underneath it, laced with a pulsing darkness that is familiar but not quite known.

_He has to become something they won't want to stay close to._

It's so easy for him to draw the runes, so natural.

 _If he does this, he has to do it alone_.

It's a combination of two things he loves, runes and pure magic manipulation, it's perverted, distorted, but he feels as if he was born to do exactly this.

_He's not even being dishonest._

He can feel the effect of the blood magic spreading into his veins like a poison, slowly unraveling to reach his core, dark and powerful.

_In fact, the one person he's been lying to all this time is himself._

He doesn't even feel any exhaustion anymore.

_Why couldn't he admit it before?_

The answer is easy enough to find.

_This is so natural because, deep down he's not a Light wizard._

In this life, he's a dark wizard.

 

Percy look out the open window at the night sky. The needles fall to the ground, into a puddle of his own blood, with a clang. He doesn't pick them up. He doesn't need them. He isn't going to need them for a long time. He's done with experimentations, he's done with trying to find how blood magic works.

He understands.

He knows.

His hip burns with magic, redirected, repurposed and, for the first time in months, he doesn't feel on the verge of collapsing.

Voldemort didn't use blood magic, he whispers into the stars, at Luna, at himself. Voldemort didn't use blood magic and, deep down, he has always known that. He lied to himself, pretended to keep hoping because, what he really wanted to do, was to plunge the needles into his own flesh. He wanted to become useful, to make his body, unable to use a wand properly, into a weapon of its own.

He has always wanted to do this.

He stands up, his bare feet dragging into the dark pool beneath him. He feels the wetness against his clothes, against his skin. The smell is strong, like an old lover returned after years away from the battlefield.

 

"I'm a blood mage," he tells the wind.

He feels like laughing but, instead, he starts crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, cat is out of the bag. I'm going to be honest with you guys, if you're uncomfortable with self-harm and blood, you might have some trouble going forward because a lot of the story is centered around blood magic and the act of doing it. 
> 
> If some of you find that might disturb them but still want to read, please contact me and I'll see what I can do about it. I don't, however, want to keep tagging the self-harm and blood magic at the beginning of chapters because I don't want to spoil the content of the chapters. HOWEVER if you want prior warning, contact me rn, or whenever you read this, and I'll do my best to warn you ahead of time whenever something is coming up in a chapter. (either by comment or w my mail, ill be happy to answer).
> 
> Anyways, Percy is reaching the bottom of his downward spiral. I know whats going to happen next and it'll be a bit better mental health-wise, especially considering where he is rn (weasley house).  
> I couldn't write for a long time because of an injury but I'm getting back into it.
> 
> I'll try to write more this week end and maybe post the next chapter then. Thanks guys for everything, see you around!


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